East Retford 1XV, Saturday 8th March, Home, Won 19 -15

Royces returned to league action at Victory Road looking to put last weeks poor performance behind them and maintain their 100% league home record. Similar to last week there was a stiff breeze and much was spoken about adapting and playing to the conditions, something that had been Royces downfall the previous week.

Using his lucky charm McLaughlin won the toss and elected to play against the stiff breeze in the first half. Taking heed of the pre match talk Royces began well playing into the breeze but were repelled with Retford using the strong breeze to get themselves into the Royces half on a couple of occasions. With the lineout functioning well Royces were winning their own ball and spoiling Retfords forcing them to throw long. From a lineout deep inside the Retford half a series of phases saw the ball find its way out to DFRL who touched down, conversion successful 7-0. Royces continued to play sensible rugby against the elements but any penalties conceded in their own half were made more kickable by the wind with Retford taking one of their two opportunities, making the score 7-3. Undeterred Royces continued to play in the Retford half and McLaughlin launched a cross field kick, which DFRL looking like a giraffe that had just been shot with a tranquilliser dart collected and offloaded to Dave Poole who touched down in the corner. Conversion missed, half time 12-3. Royces showing they knew how to play against a strong wind.

Retford started the second half the better of the two sides, but solid defence allowed Royces to continue to clear their lines. Clearly frustrated by their inability to break Royces down Retford opted to bring some niggle into the game and when 3 Royces players stopped to exchange handbags following a ruck Retford squeezed over in the right hand corner, the try was awarded despite all believing a lineout was the correct decision. Conversion missed, 12-8. It was Royces who were to score the games decisive try next, following a break up the right hand side DFRL ran in a try under the posts, conversion successful 19-8. With 15 minutes left Royces looked to close out the game however Retford did manage to score another try following a scrum, the scrum half picked up from the base and beat a few tackles to score under the posts, conversion successful 19-15.  Royces stayed solid in defence to close out the game, final score 19-15.

A good result for Royces who got back in the winning habit against a side currently above them in the league table. The disappointing aspect of the game was that Royces didn’t push on having put themselves exactly where they wanted to be at half time.

Team: Jon Peacock (8), Ed Barker (8), Lawrence Betty (7), Jon Turner (8), Dan Sanderson (9), Paul McLaughlin (9), Dave Poole (9), Iwan Ranft (8), Luke Daigneault (8), Adam King (7), Ben Higgin (7), Andrew Taylor (8), Mike Brown (8), Ian Baker (8), Alex Gill (8) Subs: Malcolm Lee (8), Callum Elliott (8)