Doncaster Knights will be looking to maintain their 100 per cent record on their return to the B & I Cup in Saturday’s Pool D clash against Bedford Blues at Castle Park.
“We are taking the competition seriously and we want to do well in it,” said head coach Glen Kenworthy.
“It’s another home game and we want to perform for our fans and hopefully play for much longer than we did against Cornish Pirates last weekend.
“We probably only played at our best for five or six minutes in the first half and not much more in the second and that isn’t good enough.
“It was like a carbon copy of the Championship game against them a fortnight earlier at times in that we put early points on the board and then eased off and Pirates got in front.
“But we finished the half well and scored a huge try in psychological terms in injury-time to go in leading 14-13.
“It showed that when we do play some nice rugby we can score some good tries.
“We increased our lead to 22-13 before having No 8 Phil Eggleshaw stretchered off with a knee injury.
“We let them get in front again after going down to 14 men but there is a lot of unity in the squad and they showed a lot of character to come back and win the game like we did.
“As I say, we can play better.
“But during my time at the club Pirates have always been our bogey team and we’ve only beaten them three or four times, so to do so on Saturday was pleasing.”
Having picked up bonus point wins in their opening two games, Knights will fancy their chances against a Bedford side who are the only team in the group not to have won a game, though both their defeats were the result of last-minute converted tries.
“We’ve had a look at Bedford this week to see what they’ve got to offer as well as looking at our performance against Pirates last week and seeing where we can do better,” said the New Zealander, who was impressed by second-rower Jon Phelan among others.
“We’ll certainly be wanting to play better for far longer periods than we did against Pirates, that’s for sure.”
And it may have happened in last-gasp circumstances, but hat trick hero Paul Jarvis was more than confident that Doncaster could pull off the win.
“We always felt confident that we could win the game and we dug in at the end just like we did at Cross Keys,” said the speedster.
“There is a really good team spirit. We are all mates off the field as well as on it and that makes it easier to play for each other.”
He went on: “It may not have been a diamond performance but we got what we wanted from the game.”