Casuals 34 Ashby 8

Midlands 3 East North
27th Mar 10 –
Nottingham Casuals 34 vs 8 Ashby

Casuals overwhelmed league leaders Ashby at Canalside, and gave themselves a fighting chance of promotion.

Playing in front of a crowd who had just enjoyed a pre-match buffet, Casuals 1sts served up some Rugby to delight them even further in the spring sunshine, that is all apart from the Ashby contingent
Tries from Joe Barton, Johnny Betty, & Josh Tilford, together a mix of 2 conversions and 5 penalties, against 1 penalty and 1 try from Ashby brought Casuals a handsome victory.
They never gave the visitors a chance to develop any decent attacks, and Casuals defence stood firm.
Casuals kept the ball alive, and although not everything came off, they still proved far too good for Ashby. The forwards played an enormous part in keeping Casuals on the front foot, with young Ian Slater coming in at prop, for a rare league outing, putting in a man of the match performance. A steady stream of ball from set pieces, and good work around the breakdown, allied to a solid defence,never allowed Ashby a base from which to work.
Ashby opened the scoring, with a penalty, but Casuals soon drew level with a penalty from Mark Higgins.
A break from Higgins, linking with Jon Ackroyd, who in turn gave Joe Barton a simple pass for a touchdown.
The next try saw Johnny Betty go over for his maiden try for the 1sts. A straight backs move seemed to be going to the wing, but Betty cut back in, and despite being tackled just short of the try line he managed to stretch over the goal line for the 5 points, Higgins adding the conversion.
Higgins punished any Ashby indiscretions, rarely missing his penalty kicks, Ashby helping his cause by regularly offending near their own posts.
Ashby managed to cross for an unconverted try before half time, but with the wind at their backs Casuals never looked like losing in the 2nd half.
Josh Tilford took the ball on from a scrum near the Ashby line, and went through some fairly ineffective tackles for Casuals 3rd try, which Higgins again converted.
Casuals now have to win their next league game convincingly on April 10th , against Ashfield, and Oakham have to help Casuals by beating Ashby,. It then hinges on Ashby’s last game on April 17th , and whether they can amass enough points to pip Casuals on points difference