Cornish Pirates V Doncaster Knights

Sunday Aprl 19th
Kick Off 3pm

For the penultimate game in the 2008/09 season, the Pirates expect the toughest of encounters against fourth placed Doncaster.

The 'Knights' are one of only two teams to have beaten league champions Leeds Carnegie this season, so a mighty challenge awaits against Lynn Howells' side.

The Pirates lost away to Doncaster 9-5 when the teams first met at National Two level back in November, 2002, but they gained revenge when winning 38-15 at the Mennaye Field later that season, and have amazingly remained unbeaten against Doncaster ever since. Since 'Donny' arrived in National One back in 2005, seven games have been won by the Cornish side (six league and one cup), and one drawn (24-24) - that the last encounter played at Castle Park in October.

Of all the Pirates wins against Doncaster, the highlight was last year's home Easter Sunday game which ended up with a quite incredible 63-36 scoreline. Without hesitation it can be said that the archives will record it as being one of the classic contests in the club's history, and one when wthe Pirates also temporarily leapfrogged their Yorkshire opponents into fourth place.

As the final whistle sounded the reaction of the crowd made it clear that they had watched a quite incredible game of rugby, it beyond belief that such quality play could have been witnessed in less than ideal conditions. A total of 13 tries were scored in the match - nine by the Pirates and four by Doncaster.

The outstanding try of the afternoon was probably one scored by Heino Senekal, who finished off a move through sheer determination, raw strength and pace, to carry the ball successfully to the line.

As for celebration of a try scored, however, there could only be one winner - that the one scored by Dan Seal.

Back to Sunday's match, in 23-year-old fly-half Jamie Lennard the Yorkshire visitors have the leading National One points scorer this season, and by a clear margin at that. The former Charlton FC youth player, who is presently on 276, is followed by Nottingham's Dave Jackson on 221 and Exeter's Gareth Steenson on 214.

The Pirates top points scorer is Rhys Jones who has now accumulated 167 points, which is a worthy total for someone who has featured in just 19 games.

As for try scoring, former 'Pirate' Wes Davies has been in impressive form and heads Donny's list with 13, which is two better than the Pirates equal top try-scorers Marika Vakacegu and Brian Tuohy, who are both on 11. For general information the league's leading try-scorer is Dave Jackson with 17.

The Cornish Pirates have named their side for Sunday, with just three changes in the line-up from the one that started against Plymouth Albion. A fit again Marika Vakacegu returns at full-back in place of the the injured Adryan Winnan, and at outside centre Paul Devlin is selected ahead of Mark Ireland. The one other change is in the pack where, as was the case at Sedgley Park a couple of weeks back, lock Mike Burak takes over the captaincy role and replaces Ben Gulliver at lock