HT 10-17 FT 10 -43
Attendance – 847
STAR MAN – Ryan Olowofela (Nottingham)
Referee – Hamish Grant
Scrums Won/Lost – Cambridge 4/0 Nottingham 6/0
Line Outs Won Lost – Cambridge 6/2 Nottingham 14/2
Penalties against – Cambridge 7 Nottingham 9
Yellow cards 0/1
Nottingham went away from from Ellgia Fields with all five points after a dominant second half showing blew Cambridge away, with a margin of victory that had looked unlikely in a very even first forty.
The Blood & Sand took the lead through Ben Brownlie via a trademark driving maul. Louis Grimoldy’s attempted conversion swirled away in the wind but the early exchanges looked promising for the hosts.
Ryan Olowofela tied the score for the visitors, darting over in the corner and Gwyn Parks had better luck off the tee. Eli Caven put Cambridge back in the front in similar fashion, squirming over, but his conversion attempt was gone with the wind. Two driving mauls from the visitors,though, finished by hooker Jack Dickinson, had the Archers in the sheds ahead by 7 points at the break.
Nottingham DOR Craig Hammond didn’t see a big win coming at that point: “It’s a hard place to come. They have a pretty big pack. Cambridge are a good team, they were unlucky to be losing at that point. Up front, though, set piece wise I thought we did pretty well. Our scrum and line out and maul were pretty good. And we got two quick tries in the second half which put the game away a little bit. We did very well to keep them out. They came back right at the end and we kept them out again. When we do it right it’s pretty simple”.
He wasn’t wrong. Not for the first time this season the first score of the second half against the Blood & Sand turned the game. That was courtesy of Olowofela again as he returned a high ball from Matt Hema with interest for the try bonus point. Try number five was similar in nature with another kick-chase opportunity run back by the Archers, James Cherry producing the final flourish. Harry Clayton made the game more than safe just past the hour mark off another driving maul and with the ball spun wide again, Harry Graham got Nottingham’s seventh of what had turned out to be a productive afternoon.
Cambridge rallied in the gathering Grantchester Road gloom, but, try as they might, couldn’t find a way past the Archers defence. Head Coach Richie Williams hadn’t seen that score coming either. “That was one of our lowest points, certainly this season. We’d had a really positive week, fixing things that weren’t right last Saturday and there was a different sort of energy about the place. Unfortunately that didn’t transfer into the second half today and we made things very difficult for ourselves. To concede a soft score straight after the break took the wind out of our sails and it made it very difficult for us to regain our momentum”.
Teams
Cambridge
Caven 7, Green 6 Glister 68) Hanks 6, Hema 6 , Glister 6 (Skelcey 55 6), Grimoldby 6(Tarrant 55 6) Dawson 6 (Thompson 62 7); Brownhill 6 (Scola 66 6), Brownlie 7 (Veness 57 6), Walker 6 (Nearchou 66 6) , Bretag Norris 6, Rees 6, Sylvester,7, Adams 6 (Cardew 48 7), Bartlett 7 (Benson 57 6)
Nottingham
Olowofela 8, Williams 7 (Johal 63 6), Stapley,7 Christian-Goss 7, Graham 7, Parks 7, Yarnell 7 (Bemand 66 6); Owen 6, Dickinson 7 (Clayton 55 7), Loman 6 (Richardson 48 6), Ferreira 6 (Chessum 48 6), Shine 6, Green 7, Wright 7, Cherry 7
Scorers
Cambridge
Tries – Brownlie 10, Caven 19
Nottingham
Tries – Olowofela 16, 42, Dickinson 23, 32, Cherry 55, Parks 62, Graham 65
Conversions – Parks17, 43, 56, 66