Doncaster Knights head coach Clive Griffiths refused to be criticial of his side after they overcame woeful conditions to secure a narrow 21-17 win over Worthing.
The league leaders, who have only lost three times all season and are locked in a head-to-head battle with Rosslyn Park for promotion, had two tries racked up before half-time.
Winger Tyson Lewis and a penalty try put them into the lead before the Raiders came storming back in the second half.
But a hard-fought win at Worthing on a heavy pitch was not a disappointment to Griffiths, despite the lack of a bonus point.
“We lost control in the first five minutes of the second half and gave them a bit of a leg up, we did not control field position like we said we would,” he said.
“We started coasting a little bit and those ten minutes were not great and they became buoyed by that and scored tries.
“We knew we had to kill the game off from there, it was not pretty but a win is a win.
“The conditions in that second half were atrocious, it was raining incessantly, the pitch had cut up and even though the players had changed shirts at half time, you couldn’t even recognise them.
“So considering that, I’m delighted with the win and I’m not going to pick the bones out of the performance.
“It was an important win on what was essentially a skid patch.”
Doncaster arrived down on the South coast during the worst of the storms that hit England this weekend.
And Griffiths admitted it was a miracle that the game went ahead, let alone that his side emerged with victory.
“We came down the night before and could not even walk along the sea front, the gales were so strong,” he added.
“The pitch held up fairly well considering, it was just a case of getting over the line.
“It was important to get scores on the board, we worked hard for the tries and there were some good tries in there. They mugged us a little bit for our tries but we did what we needed to get over the line.”
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