Sat 26 Feb 2022
With some tough matches ahead, not least of which is next Saturday’s trip to Bromsgrove, Newport shuffled their team selection to allow key players some valuable rest. It soon became apparent that Oundle too were without some first choice personnel so it was no real surprise that the result went very much as the form book would have suggested.
Toby Evans, Chris Taylor, James Morton, Jordan Grass, Matt Hubbard and Henry Vaka were all left out of the starting line up although the latter three all took their turn on the bench. That meant starts for Jack Price who returned from suspension, Rhys Morgan, Jack Wells, Sam Brown, Jake Goulson and Alex Gow who enjoyed his return with a hat-trick of tries.
Playing down the slope it was the visitors who had the majority of possession in the early exchanges but with little impact. Newport wasted an early opportunity from a Jake Leonard 50/22 but Price soon stole an Oundle line out, the ball being spun wide where George Castledine, being employed as the strike runner from full back, delivered a lovely inside ball for Gow to get over in the corner for the opening score after just five minutes. Newport were playing their usual high tempo game but were perhaps a little guilty of forcing the play and making errors rather than going to ground and setting up the next phase. Nevertheless Tom Cowell and Oli Buckley, playing against the club where he grew up as a Mini & Junior, found space up the middle before handing on to Goulson who went over by the posts, Leonard converting for a score of 12 – 0 after thirteen minutes.
Oundle with their first real attack of the game were then held up over the line after some robust Newport defence, Leonard’s goal-line drop out somehow finding its way to the opposition try line clearing any threat of danger.
There then ensued a period of “dirge” when nothing stuck for either side as the game became error-strewn. Half an hour had gone when Newport ran back an Oundle clearance kick and Nemesi Rayabo used his dancing feet to finish off the move with a fine try, converted by Leonard to make it 19 – 0.
The final score of the half came on thirty-four minutes when a quick tap penalty from Brown set up the position where the ball was moved swiftly left to put Harry Mahoney in for the bonus point try, again converted by Leonard for a half time score of 26 – 0.
Having played against the elements first up the game was clearly already won but Bob Adams and his coaching team would be none too pleased with their lack of precision shown in the execution of their plays and would be expecting to see improvement in the second period, the start of which saw Grass replacing Manning and Hubbard coming on for Buckley.
Oundle started brightly and within three minutes had crashed over in the corner through second row Will Cardall who carried valiantly all afternoon for the visitors and deserved his try. This was as good as it got for the visitors, not without considerable bulk up front, it was perhaps inevitable that they would tire as the game wore on and so it proved.
There was an instant response from the home side as firstly Hubbard was driven over from a catch and drive following a penalty to the corner. Oundle put the restart dead where Brown then made a nice break from the resultant scrum on half way before delivering a beautiful reverse pass to Castledine who burst through for a further try. Connor Adams then put in an important clearance kick to half way where Price stole the Oundle throw and scampered fifty metres through a wrong-footed defence to score another. Mahoney, who proved elusive all afternoon then wriggled out of several tackles before feeding the impressive Castledine for yet another score, all in the space of eleven minutes and Newport had extended their lead to 52 – 5.
Oundle, to their credit, stuck to their task and never gave in, well prompted by Cardall and their lively scrum half Tom Aviss and as they exerted some pressure in the Newport twenty-two Mahoney (failing to release in the tackle) and Morgan (deliberate knock-on) were sin-binned within seconds of each other reducing Newport to thirteen men. Time then for the defence to show their worth and they successfully managed to keep Oundle out with some admirable grit and determination with Grass leading the way by doing what he does best, taking people down by the ankles!
Even with thirteen they proved too much for the visitors, sweeping downfield with lovely hands resulting in Gow getting over in the corner in the seventy-fifth minute followed by another for the winger three minutes later when he was on hand to lightly chip on an inside pass from Castledine that had gone to ground and touch down for his third and a final score of 62 – 5.
Team: 15 Castledine, 14 Gow, 13 Leonard, 12 Nawaqualiva, 11 Rayabo, 10 Adams, 9 Brown, 8 Morgan, 7 Mahoney, 6 Price, 5 Goulson, 4 Buckley, 3 Manning, 2 Cowell, 1 Wells
Bench: 16 Grass, 17 Hubbard, 18 Vaka
Thoughts now turn to the trip to Finstall Park where Bromsgrove await having lost only once at their home ground all season. There can be no doubts that this will be an extremely stern test, a very important game in the context of the season as a whole, and most definitely not one to be missed. Those planning to travel over are reminded that kick-off times have now reverted to 3pm for the remainder of the season.
Written by: Chris Wilde
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