Nottingham Casuals 37 Bakewell 8

Midlands 2 East North
13th September 2014
Nottingham Casuals 37 Bakewell 8

Casuals continued their good start to the season with a resounding win over visitors Bakewell.
Previous seasons have seen mixed results, but this game was a massive turnaround from the first encounter last year, Casuals on the receiving end that time, with a victory to Bakewell of similar proportions.

With up to 7 changes from the previous week, Casuals might have struggled to gel, but it took them just 2 minutes to notch their first score.
Constable put through a beautifully weighted grubber, and Mark Higgins raced past the defence to drop on the rolling ball. Higgins converted.
Casuals had the chance to go further ahead, but the attempted penalty kick was missed, and Bakewell then closed the gap with a converted penalty.
Casuals were reduced to 14 men soon after, when the referee produced his yellow card to bin a Casual for an alleged block when competing for a loose ball.
But this did not deter them, and they kept the pressure up with some lively play, just failing to capitalise on their superiority.
Their reward came eventually with another penalty attempt from Higgins.
However despite this and even more territorial advantage, Casuals simply could not score. Even the referee tried to help by showing a second yellow card, this time against Bakewell.
Half time arrived with the score only 10 – 3 in Casuals’ favour, and it looked as if there might be a tough second half with Bakewell having the wind advantage.

But any fears that Bakewell might stage a comeback were soon dispelled.

Casuals stole the ball from a Bakwell lineout, and Steve Sarno rampaged through to give Barkham an easy run in.
Casuals advanced their scoring with another penalty 10 minutes later, giving them a good points cushion.

Graeme Roberts then showed a devastating turn of speed, racing away from the loose, but he was caught just short of the line, and it was left to big centre Joe Barton to crash through for the try. This time the conversion was successful.

Casuals maybe got a bit complacent with the 22 point gap, and they allowed Bakewell too much room, which they used to cross for an unconverted try.

Casuals snapped back into attacking mode, and some effective interpassing saw Chris Brelsford run in the next try
Brelsford was then the architect of the next try when he intercepted to run through towards Bakewell’s line, but he could not outstrip the defence. Casuals managed to recycle the ball, and Antonios (Spaniard) Alexiou ran in virtually unopposed under the posts to give Higgins an easy conversion kick

Next week - Coalville away - 15.00 kick off