Post by Jamie Crawford on Apr 9, 2019 11:25:27 GMT
Carnegie preview sponsored by Porsche Centre Sheffield (www.porschesheffield.co.uk)
Round 20, Emerald Headingly Stadium, Sun 14th Apr, 2019 - 02:30pm NOW 3pm
After a week off to consolidate learnings from our fantastic lest-minute win against London Scottish, the Knights now play their last away game of the season against a rejuvenated Carnegie. Last time out Carnegie beat Coventry 35-10 to raise them to sixth place in the Championship after remaining in the bottom two for most of the first half of the season.
Apart from London Irish, Carnegie are the form team in the Championship this year (not season).
Carnegie won four and lost nine of their first thirteen games played in any competition. They have only lost three and won eleven of their last fourteen games played.
To date this season Carnegie are sixth after winning nine and losing ten Championship games; the Knights are eighth after winning one less and losing one more. Mentioning stats for the season is irrelevant because Carnegie are virtually a different team this year compared to last year in the same season. That is sod’s law because Statbunker are up to date now that there is no point using their data!
Carnegie have only lost three Championship games since Christmas; against the top three teams; Ealing Trailfinders, Jersey Reds and London Irish, lost in that order; second, third and first in Championship standing. Their heaviest defeat was by 22 points to the Trailfinders 7-29. Hardly steamrollered; in 2018 Trailfinders scored 42 points against Carnegie.
Last time the Knights and Carnegie played each other was at the last game of 2018 (29th December) when the Knights lost 22-30 at Castle Park. I believe that most or all of their current team had recently joined Carnegie by this stage of the season (anyone know better?) Assuming so, the Knights know who they’ll be playing, the players, their style of play and some of the set moves that they will have also studied from recent footage. On 29th December Carnegie scored the winning bonus point courtesy of tries scored by Daniel Temm (Back Row), Jean Baptiste Bruzuler (Scrum Half) three minutes later; Harry Davey (Fly Half) and Chris Elder (Back Three) again three minutes later. Simply put four tries were conceded in the space of six minutes, two between 21-24 minutes and two between 64-67 minutes. One converted try separated the teams and the Knights will want to prevent Carnegie doing the double over them this season.
Other fixtures that could impact our eighth position are:
Nottingham (7th, +2) travel to Butts Park Arena to play Coventry (9th, -2)
London Scottish (10th, -4) host the Cornish Pirates (5th)
Added Fri 12th April; both on Saturday 13th, so we'll know the results before we play.
As ever we can’t worry about other results, we can only concentrate on ours.
COYK
DONNY, DONNY, DONNY…
