On a bright Autumn afternoon in front of a large crowd at their impressive Silver Royd home, it was Scarborough who began in the ascendancy. Despite the South Yorkshire side displaying a clear size advantage – particularly at numbers 7 and 8 – the home team were fronting up well in the early stages and should have taken the lead when their fly half Tomasz Chadwick pulled a penalty kick wide of the posts.

Scarborough continued to enjoy the better of the play in the early stages, and only some excellent Doncaster defence prevented a try as they repelled a driving maul in the corner.

As the game moved into the second quarter the visitors began to gain a foothold in the game, with the back row of Planchant, Peacey and Sheehan and centres Andy Ellis and Mark Steadman carrying well, before young props Tom Bagnall and Joe Lowcock combined to take the play deep into the Scarborough half. A penalty was conceded by the retreating Scarborough players, the ball was kicked to the corner and from the resulting lineout number 8 Ryan Peacey emerged from the back of the driving maul to claim the first score of the game, and leave the half time score at 5-0.

The second half began with an early penalty for Ben Millar to take the score out to 8-0, however two yellow cards in quick succession for both Doncaster half backs Josh Walker and Millar saw the tide swing back to the home side.

First some neat handling out wide set home skipper Tom Ratcliffe free to coast over from 20 yards out for a converted try, and despite a quick response by Phoenix allowing full-back Craig Deakin to slot a penalty from just inside the Scarborough half, the home side then took the lead with their second try. From a scrum 15 yards out the home scrum-half Jordan Wakeham picked up and made the most of the gaps in the Phoenix defence to ghost over under the posts for a converted try to take the score to 14-11 with only ten minutes to play.

Now restored to their full compliment, Phoenix set about making their way downfield – aided by several good defensive lineouts and mistakes from the home lineout allowing the visitors to work their way right up to the Scarborough 5 metre line. When the home side lost the ball on their own throw, the Scarborough number 8 was forced to give away a cynical penalty and earned himself ten minutes in the bin – and from the resulting penalty Peacey made him pay as he claimed the winning try from another rolling maul.