Mansfield Colts v Nottingham Colts – Home – National Colts Cup
Mansfield Colts progressed into the second round of the National Cup with an impressive 14-12 victory over a strong Nottingham side at Eakring Road on Sunday afternoon. The home side got off to the worst possible start almost straight from the kick off when a couple of missed tackles gifted Nottingham a score under the posts.
To their credit Mansfield put the initial setback behind them and regrouped to take the play straight back to Nottingham and were rewarded midway through the half when No. 8 Aiden McGregor emerged with ball following some excellent driving play from the forwards. Stand in Fly Half Alex Miles added the conversion to level at 7-7.
Mansfield continued to dominate up front and were further rewarded just before half time when the referee awarded a penalty try, penalising Nottingham’s persistent infringement preventing the score. Miles added the conversion to make the half time score 14-7 to the home side.
Nottingham started the second half strongly but were once again reduced to 14 players, this coupled with a superb Mansfield defensive performance kept them at bay. The game changed in the last 10 minutes when the home side were themselves reduced to 14 and also suffered a front row injury meaning the coaches had to re-shuffle. Nottingham were able to capitalise when their Full Back cut a great line to score. The conversion was missed and a frantic last five minutes failed to produce another score making the final score 14-12 to Mansfield who now go on to play Northampton Old Scouts in the next round.
Mansfield U17 v Buxton U17 – Away – NLD Cup
Mansfield U17’s started the defence of their Three Counties title in style with an emphatic 68-19 victory over Buxton running in ten tries in the process. Try scorers for Mansfield were Ryan Hough and Jordan Betteridge with three a piece, Joseph Symcox with two and one each for Callum Wood and Ellis Keegan. Ross Elms and John Ross Ward shared eight conversions; Callum Wood added a further kick to complete the scoring.
