Cambridge Rugby Club beaten 52-17 by Doncaster Knights in RFU Championship clash at Ellgia Fields

Cambridge were presented with another harsh lesson of life in the RFU Championship on Saturday.

Up against a full-time outfit in Doncaster Knights at Ellgia Fields, bottom-of-the-table Cambridge were beaten by a 52-17 margin.

Outgoing forwards coach Neil Harris told the Jacko Podcast: “When we are on top and we stay there – we’ve spoken a lot this week about how we attack in the 22 – we’ve scored two really good tries from doing exactly the things we wanted to do.

“The one thing is they’ve given everything. Again, we spoke about it after the Pirates game, it’s just if you cough the ball up cheaply and make mistakes, teams like Doncaster are going to punish you.

“Their back three were exceptional. They come with a lot of experience, physicality and real pace. If you give the ball away cheaply to them they’re going to hurt you.

“That’s the sign of a really good side in the Championship and it’s something that we’re still learning. It’s something that we need to evolve in our game and we can’t let teams off the hook like we did today.

“We put some really good stuff together in the second half but we got to their five-metre line and we’ve coughed the ball up or we got held up in the collision.”

Matthew Williams, Ewan Baker and Peter White all scored tries for Cambridge, who head to Nottingham on Sunday (20 April).