Casuals snatch a draw after gifting Oakham a soft score.

Saturday 15th Feb 2014

Midlands 2 East N

Oakham 11 Nott’m Casuals 11

Casuals forwards again show they are a match for most sides in the league, but their efforts are not rewarded with a win

Casuals travelled to 3rd placed Oakham, knowing they had another tough fixture. Previous encounters have seen results fluctuate, but the home side have always proved they are a tough side to beat.

Casuals took the lead after 5 minutes, with a simple penalty kick from Mark Higgins, but Oakham levelled the score, shortly after, leaving both sides fighting to gain ascendancy. The play went back and forth, and Casuals managed to gain territorial advantage through the forwards hard graft.
Casuals should have retained the ball more, and simply kept possession, not releasing their grip, but once again their penchant for kicking away good possession kept Oakham in the game.
Higgins increased Casuals lead with a second penalty, when an Oakham centre was red carded. Unfortunately came back again to leave the score 6 apiece at half time.

The cross field wind prevented either side from converting any more kicks, and Casuals were more grateful in that respect as the Oakham stand off simply could not reach the posts.

Casuals then nearly gave the game away. They were pressing Oakham really hard, and the forwards had again taken a grip, pushing up to Oakham’s line, but instead of capitalising on this, Casuals tried to ship the ball out, and a wild speculative pass was latched onto by Oakham, and their man joyfully ran from deep inside the Oakham 22, to grab a much welcome, but unlikely try.

Casuals regained the territory once again, and the forwards showed what they could do by pushing Oakham back to their line.
A maul developed and Casuals piled 12 men in to rumble up to the goal line, giving Higgins the opportunity to dive in at the corner through the tightest of gaps. Unfortunately the kick was pushed away by the wind, leaving the score level again.

Casuals then had to endure a period of sustained pressure from Oakham, but Casuals defence stood up to the test, with the forwards showing their mettle in preventing Oakham from snatching a late and much undeserved win.

Casuals were grateful for the points from the draw, keeping them just behind the sides above them, but more importantly increasing the gap on the bottom 2 sides.