Worcester Warriors 25 Doncaster Knights 5

IT took 65 minutes of frustration and a yellow card before Worcester Warriors finally cracked Doncaster’s resistance on a bitterly cold afternoon at Sixways.

In a first-half passage of play, Doncaster went through 21 phases without making significant ground as Worcester regretted squandering two early opportunities.

Warriors saw very little of the ball in the opening 40 minutes as Doncaster kept it tight among their experienced forwards.

Warriors led just 5-0 until 15 minutes from time as handling errors and misplaced passes threatened to undermine their bid for a 19th successive victory at first-team level.

Ultimately, Bevon Armitage’s yellow card broke Knights’ resolve and Worcester took advantage to score four quick-fire tries.

Replacement prop Mike Daniels bagged one of Warriors’ best tries of the season, collecting an offload inside his own half before hurtling to the line for the biggest roar of the day.

Daniels had his best game in a Warriors shirt after replacing the injured Nick Schonert and he made some important carries before his scintillating score.

Jonathan Thomas is also returning to his best form and, as well as his assured line-out work, he got Warriors over the gain line when the game threatened to grind to a halt.

But the form of fly-half Ryan Lamb will concern Warriors chief Dean Ryan because he had an erratic afternoon and struggled to impose himself.

Doncaster are scrapping to stay in the Greene King IPA Championship and their director of rugby, Clive Griffiths, a former Worcester coach, brought a game plan not often seen.

Knights kept the ball away from Worcester’s dangerous back-line and in the first-half the match was a forgettable spectacle and in danger of grinding to a standstill.

Doncaster’s pack, who had the upper hand in the first-half scrum exchanges, enjoyed long spells of possession through front-row pairing Colin Quigley and Ben Hunter.

Warriors, with a strong wind at their backs, should have broken the deadlock early on – Ben Howard went close and Lamb’s pass sailed into touch as the hosts created an overlap.

Dean Hammond also lost the ball as he dived over the line under pressure from Doncaster as Warriors laid siege in the first 10 minutes.

With frustration growing, Warriors eventually broke the deadlock six minutes before the interval when Max Stelling finished off interplay involving Andy Symons and Hammond.

Playing into the wind, Warriors dominated possession and territory in the second-half but handling errors and Doncaster’s tenacity continued to thwart them.

The tide finally turned when Knights were reduced to 14 men after Armitage was penalised at a ruck on his own five-metre line.

Lamb kicked the penalty to touch and Sam Betty drove over from the line-out to at last give Warriors some breathing space.

With renewed vigour Tom Biggs picked up a neat pass from Ryan Bower to wriggle over the line and Betty sealed the bonus point in the 72nd minute when he darted over in the corner.

Warriors saved their best until last after Daniels collected an off-load from Thomas and sprinted clear from deep to score a maiden try he won’t forget.

But Doncaster had the final word when Dougie Flockhart broke into the Worcester half and Ross Davies picked up to barge over.