Nottingham Casuals 6 Melbourne 26

28th January 2017
Midlands 2 East North

Nottingham Casuals 6 Melbourne 26

Casuals had the better of the opening exchanges, and even had the opportunity to open up the scoring after only 2 minutes, with a penalty attempt, but eventually took the lead on 21 minutes when James Wood popped over the kick.
Casuals joy was short lived when Dan Osei-Bordom was yellow carded for a no arms tackle.
How that was deemed a carding offence was somewhat strange, as the Melbourne player shoulder charged into the Casuals’ man, but hey-ho the ref is the sole judge.
Unfortunately the jury were in total disagreement.
(14 minutes sin binning, and no break in play)

Melbourne came on the attack, and they were awarded a penalty, that they kicked to touch.
They span the ball out from the lineout, a change in direction in the attack, they went through a huge gap, simply no-one at home in defence, and a simple 7 pointer.

It took Casuals another 10 minutes, but they eventually added to their score with another penalty from Wood, but Melbourne responded with an unconverted try 2 minutes later, when they fielded a clearing kick, and ran it back into the corner.
Casuals managed to sustain pressure on Melbourne, but could not convert pressure into points.

Casuals had good possession from the set pieces, the lineout was efficiently executed, with Ollie Mann imperious, and the scrum was more than a match for Melbourne.

Then Casuals had a second player yellow carded, when hooker Alastair Shaw was dismissed for a rest.
An offence in the red zone was the comment from the ref. (30 metres out in a maul???)

Casuals then lost scrum half Josh Newton, when a clumsy, potentially dangerous, 2 footed challenge for the ball, made contact with his leg, and he was forced to limp off.
That should have evened up the numbers, but the Melbourne player was not punished.

Melbourne did lose a player to a yellow card after a another 10 minutes, and when they pressured Casuals, Liam Annable was sent to the bin for 10.
The somewhat distasteful prompting of the ref to award a yellow card from a player was unacceptable, and maybe that man should have been carded.
The referee had previously called the captains together, again, warning them that he would yellow card players for further transgressions.
This turned out to be for technical offences, and when a Casuals man was later upended , his legs being lifted vertically and dumped to the ground, the tackler received a wag of the finger.

Melbourne unfortunately then took control, and they were awarded a penalty, which they put into touch, and then drove over for 7 pointer, taking Casuals out of bonus point territory.

Melbourne earned the 4 try bonus point in the latter stages of the game with another converted try.

The result did not reflect the effort put in by Casuals, and Melbourne simply did not look a table topping side.
It was a very uninspiring game, with too many stoppages, taking the focus away from the game.

There was a lot of bemusement amongst the spectators, as they watched a game littered with yellow cards, and lectures from the referee.
It was not that sort of a game, and some players could be forgiven for being perplexed at the decision making