Issues accessing an HTML table within a Repeater

Question

Very simple scenario: I have a Repeater with a table spanning its Header, Item, and Footer Templates. Because it spans templates, I cannot simply do <table id="Blah" runat="server"> and then access it via FindControl.

Is there any way to overcome this?

EDIT: The goal is to be able to retrieve the HtmlTable then pass it into another method which parses over it, converting it to excel xml.

Answer 1

In short, no. By turning it into a server control (with runat=server) you can't make it span templates. Why do you need to get to the table element?

Answer 2

I was approaching the problem incorrectly. I should have been trying to pass the Repeater, not the HtmlTable. After changing methods, I was able to accomplish my goal and can now export the Repeater contents as XML.