Doncaster 28 London Skolars 28: Skolars come from 18 points down to draw at Doncaster

London Skolars overcame an 18-point deficit to achieve a draw with Doncaster at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Skolars had a couple of difficult chances to edge a victory, but Jy-Mel Coleman’s long-range penalty kick and a Charlie Lawrence drop-goal attempt both went wide of the posts.

After Callum Bustin was held-up over the line, Doncaster dominated the early stages of the game.

Jake Melling made a superb tackle to stop Aaron Jones-Bishop, but held on for too long and after Jason Muranka was held up, Kyle Kesik darted over.

A quick pass from a scrum to the left saw Jason Tali touchdown and Skolars were struggling to stop the Dons getting the ball out of tackles as Iafeta Paleaasina’s offload saw Muranka score their third try.

Ben Pointer went close at the other end, before Skolars shifted the ball to the right for Sam Nash’s ninth try of the season.

But Doncaster extended their lead on the hooter, this time through Tali, who took a Paleaasina offload for a 22-4 half-time lead.

Skolars won possession from their second half kick-off and Pointer went over to reduce the deficit.

However, things looked grim when Tali completed his hat-trick, taking advantage of a Skolars’ error from a kick-through that also saw Simona Vavega sin-binned for a late tackle.

Despite being a man down, Skolars raised their game and Sadiq Adebiyi pushed his way over the tryline.

He scored his second in similar fashion after Vavega’s return to the field to put his side six points behind.

With Pointer and Bustin regularly making good yardage in attack, Dave Williams crashed over the tryline in his first game for two months.

Coleman was playing his first game of the season and his fourth conversion of the afternoon levelled the scores, but London couldn’t add to their tally in a tense last seven minutes.