Post by Jamie Crawford on Jan 22, 2019 14:55:23 GMT
Richmond Preview
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Round 13, Castle Park (www.drfc.co.uk) Sat 26th Jan, 2019 - 2:30pm
Another big game for the Knights that could see us rise to seventh in the Championship table if we win and Coventry lose to fourth-placed Bedford Blues. From seventh we can commence our assault on the top half of the table.
The Knights are currently nine league points above Richmond and must be in a confident mood because we’ve just beaten Hartpury College 21-48 and Coventry the week before 17-23 at their Butts Park Arena fortress where they had only lost once before this season.
Mond are three places below us in eleventh, six points above Hartpury College and will be very wary of relegation. Mond play sixth-placed Cornish Pirates next week and then Hartpury College. They are probably targeting a win against us plus a win against the students to see them ‘safe’ from the drop. Mond would have five wins if they beat us and the students and would feel much safer. They don’t play currenty ninth-placed and a currently low-ranked team London Scottish until their last game on 27th April and that might leave it too late for any comfort of survival. We all know that Carnegie are tenth for a very short period on their rise up the table after a massive investment in players. So ignoring Carnegie only the Scottish exiles and us are within Mond’s sights. Obviously this all depends how Hartpury fare in their remaining fixtures. The students aren’t without a win, they’ve won two and lost ten games and so can’t be easily dismissed.
Mond have won three and lost nine games to our five wins and seven losses.
We don’t want to be regarded as a soft target for Mond, we want to regard Mond as a target. They have scored 73 fewer and conceded one point more than the Knights have. That equates to a very similar strength of defence but our attack has scored an average of six more points per game. Although I reckon that Mond have conceded a try fewer than the knights, assuming they conceded two tries in their 16-22 loss to Carnegie to the three we conceded to Harpury last Saturday.
Richmond Full Back Rob Thirby is the fifth highest points-scorer in the Championship. Scrum Half Luc Jones and Winger Jonathan Woodward have both scored four tries over twelve games played with Centre Ronnie McClean and No. 8 Chris Davies just a try behind. 14 tries scored between four players over 12 games is significant. Davies is Richmond to the core; he played his 150th Richmond 1st XV league match against Ampthill on November 21st 2015; over three years ago.
Sixth-placed Nottingham are eight league points above us, so we can only go up one position to seventh if we beat Richmond (edited).
Coventry (7th, 2 points above) nip over to Goldington Road in Bedford to play the Blues (4th)
London Scottish (9th, 3 points below) welcome Nottingham (6th) to their Athletic Ground.
Carnegie are tenth and six points below us. (they host second-placed Ealing Trailfinders.)
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Round 13, Castle Park (www.drfc.co.uk) Sat 26th Jan, 2019 - 2:30pm
Another big game for the Knights that could see us rise to seventh in the Championship table if we win and Coventry lose to fourth-placed Bedford Blues. From seventh we can commence our assault on the top half of the table.
The Knights are currently nine league points above Richmond and must be in a confident mood because we’ve just beaten Hartpury College 21-48 and Coventry the week before 17-23 at their Butts Park Arena fortress where they had only lost once before this season.
Mond are three places below us in eleventh, six points above Hartpury College and will be very wary of relegation. Mond play sixth-placed Cornish Pirates next week and then Hartpury College. They are probably targeting a win against us plus a win against the students to see them ‘safe’ from the drop. Mond would have five wins if they beat us and the students and would feel much safer. They don’t play currenty ninth-placed and a currently low-ranked team London Scottish until their last game on 27th April and that might leave it too late for any comfort of survival. We all know that Carnegie are tenth for a very short period on their rise up the table after a massive investment in players. So ignoring Carnegie only the Scottish exiles and us are within Mond’s sights. Obviously this all depends how Hartpury fare in their remaining fixtures. The students aren’t without a win, they’ve won two and lost ten games and so can’t be easily dismissed.
Mond have won three and lost nine games to our five wins and seven losses.
We don’t want to be regarded as a soft target for Mond, we want to regard Mond as a target. They have scored 73 fewer and conceded one point more than the Knights have. That equates to a very similar strength of defence but our attack has scored an average of six more points per game. Although I reckon that Mond have conceded a try fewer than the knights, assuming they conceded two tries in their 16-22 loss to Carnegie to the three we conceded to Harpury last Saturday.
Richmond Full Back Rob Thirby is the fifth highest points-scorer in the Championship. Scrum Half Luc Jones and Winger Jonathan Woodward have both scored four tries over twelve games played with Centre Ronnie McClean and No. 8 Chris Davies just a try behind. 14 tries scored between four players over 12 games is significant. Davies is Richmond to the core; he played his 150th Richmond 1st XV league match against Ampthill on November 21st 2015; over three years ago.
Sixth-placed Nottingham are eight league points above us, so we can only go up one position to seventh if we beat Richmond (edited).
Coventry (7th, 2 points above) nip over to Goldington Road in Bedford to play the Blues (4th)
London Scottish (9th, 3 points below) welcome Nottingham (6th) to their Athletic Ground.
Carnegie are tenth and six points below us. (they host second-placed Ealing Trailfinders.)
