Nottingham Casuals 7 Ashbourne 19

Saturday 5th March 2016
Midlands 2 East North

Nottingham Casuals 7 Ashbourne 19

Casuals’ rue missed opportunities in bid for first win since the New Year.

Casuals will be asking the question, how? They had opportunities to seal their first win of the year, but poor decision making, and more importantly inexplicable handling errors gifted the win to Ashbourne.

Despite Casuals being the more dominant side for 20 minutes, they paid the price with failure to kick a penalty, then spurned a clear try scoring opportunity when there was a two man overlap, with the line at their mercy. That should have been 10 nil

Ashbourne went 5 points up after 26 minutes, much to their disbelief, when a hasty 22 drop out was collected without any pressure by Ashbourne.They ran upfield, kicked ahead, Casuals completely messed up trying to gather the ball, and Ashbourne grubber kicked to the line. The awkwardly bouncing ball eluded the defence, for the visitors to touch down for first try.

Casuals came back on the attack, and it looked only a matter of time before Casuals were going to score, but daft mistakes, like obstruction in the 3/4s kept Ashbourne in the game until 1/2 time.

With the slight wind dying down, Casuals had the ideal conditions to display some of their renowned handling skills.
A move in the 3s took play through the centre, and they kept possession, until finally crossing for a well deserved converted try.

But then it all started to go wrong

Casuals went down to 14 men with a player sin binned for collapsing a maul put their forwards under pressure, and Ashbourne were able to drive over the line from a lineout, but the referee brought play back to the 5 metres for a scrum. Ashbourne then got the softest of tries from a pick up from the base, and with Casuals missing 4 tackles, the visitors got their second try, adding the conversion to move ahead 12 points to 7.

Ashbourne kept their play to a fairly simple level, employing short accurate passing, moving the ball away from contact.
They again progressed to Casuals’ try line, and following another 5 metre scrum they went through the defence with astonishing ease for the third try, again converted.

Despite all of Casuals’ efforts they simply could not string any meaningful moves together, even messing up the simplest of penalties to ease the pressure.

The only joy was denying Ashbourne the bonus point for the 4th try, but that did little for Casuals’ league placing. Although sides below them have to win to overtake them, Casuals could help their cause by getting a couple of victories, and a bonus point win away at Bakewell would help immensely.

To quote a comment from within the camp “You don’t win games by constantly dropping the ball”.

Casuals need to restore some self belief and confidence. To say they have to play as a team is very simple, but setting out to play uncomplicated rugby would be a great start. They must recognise their strengths and accept there are no stars in the side, but as a collective they most certainly have the skills, as proven when beating league leaders Dronfield and Melton Mowbray in the RFU cup.

It was great to see so many past players at the game, not least ex 1st team regulars Messrs Harmer & Moll (all the way from Jersey, don't wait another 22 years), and Ossie as well.