Sat 5th Dec Ashby 5 Casuals 5

Midlands 3 East North
Sat Dec 5th
Ashby 5 Casuals 5

Not quite the spectacle of running rugby from the week before, but honours even on another dark and dismal day.
Ashby's pitch is a bit of a leveller (no not level), soggy underfoot, clinging mud, and a cross field wind to boot.
Amazing how they managed to make a game of it in the end.
The ref decided to leave the decision to the teams whether to play,(his best decision of the day) and despite some slipping and sliding, no-one was in danger of drowning, so they played.
Casuals seemed to be capable of dealing with everything that Ashby could muster and their defence was more than a match for the hosts.
Most attacks in the backs came to nowt and the backs, especially Higgins, Howatson and Milne (Milny restored to full fitness), stopped all the attacks.
Casuals only early chance was a penalty attempt, but as the first half progressed they created a number of chances only for the ball to be spilled, when the hard work had been done.
Ashby had their opportunities and on the first near miss, it was Dave Mellor whose last ditch challenge left both him and the Ashby right wing sprawled bloodied on the ground, preventing a certain touch down, and whilst Mellor was being patched up, Josh Slack came on for his debut as the blood sub, and scored Casuals try following some enterprising play in the backs, when he zoomed in at the corner .
The second near miss was when an Ashby player dived over the line , but was double tackled in mid air by Higgins and Wilkinson, and he spilled the ball forward.
The second half, in its initial stages was as much the same as the first, but Ashby started to use their main weapon from previous encounters, the trundling maul, when all the pack massed in front of the ball carrier, and they simply splodged their way up upfield. They eventually managed to construct a move which despite a huge forward pass which the referee did not spot, (too far away in the distant gloom) they dotted down in the left corner, the kicker narrowly missed the conversion.
So the game was played out in the fast fading light, both sides eventually grateful for the final whistle, probably wondering what if?
A fair result, for a game that was played in good spirit.

Just a mention of the intrepid Casuals folk who came and watched the game. Thanks for travelling