Mansfield II v No Report
Mansfield III v No Report
Mansfield IV v Tupton II – Home
This was a tough contest for the first game of the season. The pitch was hard but Mansfield thrashed out a good 24-5 win to boost their start to the season. D. Chapman and N. Hardwick both bagged 2 tries a piece to set the pace with Pruden and Gibbons slotting a conversion each.
Mansfield Colts v Scunthorpe – Home / v Oakham - Away
Mansfield Colts prepared for the coming season with warm up games against Scunthorpe and Oakham in the last week. Scunthorpe travelled to Eakring Road on Wednesday night and left with a hard fought 17-5 victory outscoring the home side by two tries to one in a close encounter. Playing four 20 min periods to give the entire squad a run out, the home side played up the slope in the first two periods and really should have converted territorial advantage and dominance of possession into points, instead the teams turned round at half time scoreless. The third period was to prove decisive after both coaches made a number of changes which changed the flow of the game. It was Scunthorpe who responded the better scoring 17 unanswered points in a frantic 10 min period all of which came from Mansfield errors. The home team responded in the final period and had a couple of opportunities to score before inside centre Alan Symcox finished off a flowing team move by scoring in the corner.
On Sunday the squad travelled to Rutland to play Oakham and came away with a 10-7 victory in another tight game against strong opposition. This time playing three 25 minute periods, Mansfield started with the breeze at their backs and thanks to superb tactical kicking from Jordan Bailey, spent long spells camped on the opposition line and were unlucky not to be awarded tries when they crossed the line and appeared to satisfactorily ground the ball, instead the referee adjudged they had been held up. The deadlock was finally broken when, following a brief drive from a 5m lineout, the ball was spun out to the backs for fullback Jonno Repton to score out wide. The conversion was missed but the lead was further extended before the end of the period when Hooker Danny Ellis emerged with ball after being driven over by the rest of the pack.
Playing into the breeze, Mansfield were forced to defend for most the second period, only a momentary lapse in concentration at the end of the game allowed Oakham in for a consolation score under the posts making the final score 10-7. Mansfield now look forward to the first league game on Sunday when Market Rasen and Louth are the visitors to Eakring Road.
