Bingham prevail away at Ashfield

Once again a much changed Bingham side travelled to Ashfield on a wet Saturday afternoon, right up until kick off it was undecided as to whether the match would be played with uncontested scrums as we had a number of unavailability’s in the front row, but we decided to grab the bull by the horns and went contested. The front row consisted of the returning Lee Stokoe, Chris Bell in the hooking position and Gareth McGahan thrust once again into the tight head.

Bingham kicked off and were straight on the attack and spent most of the 1st half camped in the opposition 22 but some strong defence by Ashfield kept Bingham at bay. The scrum was strong with the Bingham pack pushing Ashfield back on a number of occasions which allowed Jonathan Thomas to pick up and drive for the line, on 2 occasions the line was crossed but JT was held up. Bingham needed to score and score they did firstly from a penalty after some foul play from the Ashfield pack, slotted by Anthony Thomas, who went on to score the only try of the 1st half after collecting the ball from a loose kick on the opposition 10 yard line and beating a couple of defenders to score in the corner and he also managed to kick the conversion. The back three also linked up well with Will North, Glen Sutton and Lee Fretwell eager to counter attack from within their own half. Despite no further score in the 1st half there was some strong running from the back row of JT Peter Mount and Andy Watts only to be denied by some strong tackling form Ashfield.

The second half started with a strong run from Lee Stokoe who collected the kick off and charged down the pitch beating off a number of defenders. Bingham attacked from all over the field and may have been over eager as some spilt passes allowed Ashfield field position. Changes were made with Chris Spibey replacing Lee Fretwell and Jim Cooper replaced Jason Churchill. The constant pressure was n bound to tell with Anthony Thomas kicking another penalty before Chris Garrod crossed untouched from the 22, the conversion missed. Two more changes saw Ollie and Matthew Thomas come on to the field, the latter making his debut with now 3 Thomas’s on the pitch another score was bound to come, from a pre-planned move in the backs Glen Sutton collected a pass and ran through untouched for a try under the posts which Anthony Thomas converted.

There were some strong individual performances with JT to the fore with some strong runs ably supported by Andy Watts and Peter Mount. The front 5 worked tirelessly and a special mention to Gareth McGahan who scrummaged strongly.

The backs acquitted well to the wet slippery conditions with Anthony Thomas once again showing that there is a number 10 in there somewhere.

There are areas for improvement, namely the lineout and also reducing the penalty count.

Final score 25 – 0, this is the 4th consecutive game we haven’t conceded.