Nottingham Casuals 2XV, Saturday 5th January, Home, Lost 7-21
Rolls-Royce welcomed Nottingham Casuals 2nd team to Victory Road for the first game of 2008. A line up short of a few numbers due to long holidays meant that Royces needed to borrow a player from the opposition for the first time this season. However, those available formed a strong unit and took to the field with optimism.
Casuals started the brighter and clearly fancied their chances out wide. Some early missed tackles up meant that numbers were available to Casuals when they chose to spread the ball. Royces conceded two tries in the first quarter when Casuals managed to work these numbers to their advantage to set free the pace available to them on the wings and it looked like a tough outing lay ahead.
However, Royces eventually got a vague resemblance of drift defence working to nullify this threat. Furthermore, once the rot was stopped it became apparent that there was a definite advantage up front for Royces, particularly in the line-outs and scrums. With Monty, Ady and Malc making the hard yards up front and scrum-half Barks sniping round the fringes the Royces were able to apply some pressure, with Ellans (a fly-half from the Goode vintage rather than the Cipriani school of flair) putting the ball downfield to secure territory. From one such line-out a couple of pick and goes were followed by a pop to veteran powerhouse and all-around legend Paul Whitehouse, who bulldozed his way over from 10 yards to bring Royces back into it. The grand old man of RRRFC then stepped up to convert his own effort. The rest of the half saw both teams having a go but no real try scoring opportunities for either side.
Half time brought some inspirational chat from skipper Mark that moved Barks to vomit (twice).
Royces started the second half with the wind and the belief that this meant continued pressure could be applied in the same manner as at the end of the first half. However, some wayward kicking allowed Casuals most dangerous broken field runners to return the ball with interest on more than one occasion. Fortunately Rich Mercado and on-loan Casuals winger Tom Nosurname were on hand to make the last-ditch tackles and have a pop at running back the scraps. Casuals scored a deserved further try after some good phases after one such return allowed their fly-half to score under the posts.
The game continued in the same pattern (Royces win possession, drive a bit, kick to Casuals dangerous back three, panic) after the try. Mark Lowe made some hard yards through the centres and Shane had a couple of decent darts up his wing before the game then ended in unfortunate fashion, with a Casuals player going down by means of a broken leg. We wish him all the best for a speedy recovery.
Team: Rich Mercado; Tom Nosurname, Ali Craig, Mark Lowe, Shane McNamara; Chris Ellans, Ed Barker; Ady Gregory, Chai Uawithya, Rich Orme; Monty Robson, Neil Raistrick; Paul Whitehouse, Malc Lee, Mark Kerr (c)