Blues and Mob are both beaten in Championship clashes

Paul Turner felt his Ampthill side lost concentration late on.

Blues’ three-match winning run came to a disappointing end with a 50-19 defeat at Doncaster Knights.

Meanwhile, Ampthill travelled to Cornish Pirates but narrowly lost 15-13.

For Blues, it was a game where Mike Rayer’s side never really got going; they looked impressive with ball in hand but just didn’t get hold of it often enough and were made to pay the price for ill-discipline.

It was 28-14 to Doncaster at half-time through scores by Jared Cardew, John Kelly, Thom Smith and Ehize Ehizode.

Blues struck back twice to level proceedings at 7-7 and 14-14. Dean Adamson went over for the first after great work by George Hendy, then Huw Taylor got the second try by burrowing under bodies to reach the line.

Blues spent a lot of the second half with a player inferiority as yellow cards were shown and despite Sean French scoring his first competitive try for the club, Doncaster ultimately took advantage to run away with the scoreboard and secure all five points.

Ampthill took an early lead in Cornwall as the ball was worked wide and Ben Cambriani strolled in unopposed from 15m out for his seventh try of the season, which was unconverted.

A penalty reduced the arrears to 3-5 but hooker Matt Gallagher, who scored his first Ampthill try the previous week, got his second in the 25th minute as a training ground line-out/maul was finished by Gallagher out wide, again unconverted by Gwyn Parks in the wind.

However, Pirates went on to score again through a maul just left of posts and an easy conversion that levelled things up 10-10, but a Parks penalty put the Mob in front by the break.

The second half was a tense affair but the game was won at the death as Wedlake went over in the corner despite Pirates being a man down at the time.

Following the game, head coach Paul Turner said: “That was our best performance of the season for 78 minutes, but we just lacked composure near the end.

"With 20 seconds on the clock we’ve lost the final line out in Pirates half and that has ultimately cost us – it’s frustrating as we’ve done everything but win the game!”