Nottingham Rugby Preview Green King IPA Championship Round 2

No problem John Bale, surely a substantial victory to Knights?

Quote from the Free Press, "Griffiths and his coaching staff will be adding the finishing touches to the club’s preparations for Sunday’s Championship visit to Nottingham.

Whereas Knights impressed in defeat, not so Sunday’s opponents in their game at Cornish Pirates.

“It was a very dour game with a lot of kicking,” said Griffiths, who is confident Knights can avenge last season’s double defeat against Nottingham

Griffiths is unlikely to make more than the odd change for the trip down the M1 apart from Bevon Armitage, who guested for Newcastle last weekend, taking over from Mat Clark, who suffered a knock against Welsh, in the centre."

C'mon Knights let's start our away season with a win, DONNY, DONNY, DONNY...

Nottingham Rugby v Doncaster Knights: Match preview:
Ben Johnston demands improvement
By Nottingham Post | Posted: September 11, 2015

Nottingham Rugby's players have been given a stark message ahead of their first home game of the season against Doncaster Knights on Sunday (3pm).
Defeat at Cornish Pirates is no disgrace, but backs coach Ben Johnston admits the camp was frustrated as weeks of pre-season were followed by a below-par performance when it mattered.
The former England centre says a sharp improvement is required as they prepare for something of a local derby at Lady Bay.
"This week, there have been a lot of players that know the level of performance at Pirates isn't what Nottingham Rugby is about," he said.

"They know we need to up our game and make sure we don't under-perform again.
"We always look back on the games to see where our improvement needs to come. We weren't particularly happy with how we performed.
"We agreed as a coaching staff and a team that we didn't achieve the standards we set last weekend.
"Doncaster's always a tough game. They're the closest team we play so there's always a bit of local rivalry.
"They're physical and up for the battle. We'll have to up our game if we want to get a result."
Head coach Martin Haag handed debuts to nine new signings in Penzance as the Green and Whites lost 18-14 in their Championship opener.
Johnston does not believe the high turnover of players was a factor in the defeat.
"We had a review of pre-season and felt it went pretty well. We felt the group was in a good place," he said.
"It didn't work out that way on the day but that's the nature of sport sometimes. It happens.
"The good thing is we get the chance to put it right this weekend.
"There were some positives from how we played against Pirates.
"We can take a lot from our defence. We gave away very few penalties in the first and half and we were very disciplined.
"They only scored three points in the first half. I appreciate we didn't score any, but we were pleased with how we defended for long spells."
The club are ready for their first full season at Lady Bay. When they moved there in January it was an unenviable challenge for the ground staff to prepare the pitch.
However, the surface looks in immaculate condition after a summer of hard work on it.
Johnston hopes that will help ensure fans are treated to an entertaining game against a team who only lost to promotion chasing London Welsh by two points in their first game, 35-33.
"The weather has been kind and the ground team has done a great job. It's made for a high tempo game," Johnston said.
"We want to run the ball. We've got strong backs and pace through the whole team, but Doncaster have strike runners too.
"They'll look to play an expansive game as well."
Team news
Nottingham Rugby head coach Martin Haag has named an unchanged squad for their Championship home opener against Doncaster at Lady Bay.
Haag has selected the same starting XV and replacements that suffered a narrow 18-14 at Cornish Pirates last weekend, in the opening round.
Versatile fly-half or centre Will Millett is the only name among the squad who is still to make his debut for the club.
This was after summer signings TJ Harris, Kieran Davies, Rob Langley, Ben Morris, Darryl Veenendal, Lawrence Rayner, Viliami Hakalo, Ben Woods, Sam Coghlan Murray all started in Penzance last Sunday, while Tom Heard, Murray McConnell and Ricky Andrew all featured as replacements.
Line-up: 15) Billy Robinson, 14) Sam Coghlan Murray, 13) Ben Woods, 12) Viliami Hakalo, 11) Pila Iongi, 10) Lawrence Rayner, 9) Darryl Veenendaal; 1) Kieran Davies, 2) TJ Harris, 3) Conor Carey, 4) Toby Freeman, 5) Dan Montagu (c), 6) Ben Morris, 7) Rob Langley, 8) Paul Grant.
Replacements: 16) Jon Vickers, 17) Tom Heard, 18) Morgan Eames, 19) Rupert Cooper, 20) Murray McConnell, 21) Will Millett, 22) Ricky Andrew

Great win on the road today, both teams played good running rugby, thought the ref made a howler in binning hillzy, their scrum half tapped a quick pen straight into Micky who was about a yard away, played the ref. Even the Notts fans around me couldn't believe that decision.

Big worry about Declan, hopefully we will get some good news about him very soon.

I reckon hills was binned for dissent when ref gave pen looked like hills spoke out and ref binned him, is there a report released to check that out? Thought ref had a decent game, it was a decent game all round!!! Knights recovered well from a mad ten mins, I thought steadman and the half backs collectively were excellent!

Any news about Declan?