Matlock 57 Nottingham Casuals 7
Casuals showed what they are capable of, in taking recently relegated Matlock to the wire, and almost pulling off the win in the dying moments, was not the headline for this game.
21st January 2017
Midlands 2 East North
Matlock 57 Nottingham Casuals 7
Hoping for a better result than the last encounter, it just did not happen.
Casuals were put to the sword, and despite a valiant effort, they were simply outclassed.
Making a lot of changes, which included the return of Mark Higgins after along injury lay off, and bringing in Niall O’Kane on the wing, Barry Harding back at wing forward, and Dan Clarke amongst the subs.
Matlock showed their intent very early on, and were 12 nil up within ten minutes.
Casuals retaliated briefly, and closed the gap when a long pass found Hallam, and his pace told, running out around the Matlock 3s then cutting back in to charge through the massed defence for a superb individual try, which James Wood converted.
12 – 7, and a glimmer of hope.
Unfortunately a false dawn, as Matlock racked up 6 more tries, some pushovers in the scrum and a very cruel penalty try for a stray hand in the scrum.
Casuals came back in the latter stages, but were unable to turn their territorial advantage into a score. With Casuals pounding the try line, hoping for a late consolation score, they dropped the ball, and the Matlock left wing hacked ahead from their own try line outrunning the defence in the chase upfield, and Matlock finished with a converted try.
A cruel end to a hard game
Next week Casuals host Melbourne at Canalside, hoping for an upturn in fortunes, and reversing the result from the earlier league encounter, which Casuals lost very narrowly.
The RJH conversion specialists man of the match in this Rothera Sharp solicitors sponsored game was Barry Harding
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