Ashbourne 12 - 16 Bingham

Ashbourne 12 - 16 Bingham

It has been a long hard 4 weeks as we continued on the road for the 4th successive away game to Ashbourne for the 1st time for many a year. Grateful to Vet Dave Fairchild for turning out to cover front row unavailability and Dave played the full 80

The game started scrappily with many dropped balls from both sides. On 10 mins Will Packer pushed a penalty wide. Bingham ran the ball back as Ashbourne cleared long getting close to the line before a high tackle gave Will Packer a 2nd chance which he converted.

Bingham press for a score but lost possession close to the line; Ashbourne hack on and create some panic in our defence before clearing for line out

Ashbourne continuity led to the extra man being able to run in from wide 7 - 3

A good Bingham forward drive and Will Packer slots a 2nd penalty

Whilst scrums and lineout working well, just unable to get consistent clean quick ball and a disappointing half ends down 1 pt 7 - 6

The 2nd half continued to frustrate all playing and watching as continuity and quick ball just did not seem to come our way.

A penalty close to the touch and on the 10m line was guided over by Will Packer and back into the lead 7 - 9

Some hard work having to defend and a lost scrum in our 22m created more pressure but held up 5m out. A poor clearance allowed Ashbourne to run back wide to get their 2nd try 12 - 9

Bingham made hard work getting back into the Ashbourne 22m. Jack Barnard forces a fumble from a scrum and recovers the ball and gets over the line. Will Packer adds the conversion and gets us 4 pts ahead. 12 - 16

The restart is fumbled, adds pressure and during the last 5mins we gain several turnovers close to our line but then lose possession too easily

The 4 point lead proved vital as a couple of late penalties were then ran by Ashbourne in an attempt to get the win but each attack was thwarted.

Pete Coppack then puts in a game-saving tackle almost on full time and we manage to walk away with a win having used our Get out of Jail free card

Overall the result we needed but not the performance, Some great hits from Jack Barnard & Ben Packer but a few hard knocks picked up.

A rest now before we host table-topping Dronfield on Saturday 1st December. The top of the league table is now looking pretty tight with Bingham lying 4th and 4 teams in the top half only having lost 1 game.

We play 2 of these teams in the next 4 weeks, both at home in the run-up to Christmas; Dronfield - 1 DEC, Kesteven - 15 DEC & Ilkeston in between these fixtures away on 8 DEC so a key period in the season for the club.