Huntingdon & District Rugby

Stags produced their best performance of the season to defeat Northampton Casuals 23-15 in front of a good crowd at the Racecourse on Saturday.

The early exchanges saw both teams evenly matched and playing good attacking rugby. Stags were first on the board with a penalty goal to Conner Withers, but Casuals soon responded with a goal of their own to level it up.

Stags were first to score a try when a free flowing backline move saw Withers evade several tackles down the left flank and run in under the posts, where he succeeded with the conversion as well.

Throughout the half Stags played with little possession, but the defence was holding firm despite several penalties being given away for high tackles. A rare visit to Casuals 22 saw Withers score his second, but the conversion was missed from wide out.

As the ref blew for oranges, Stags went into the break with a 15-3 lead and clearly the happier of the two teams but knowing the game was far from over.

Casuals lost their number eight to the sin bin early in the second half and Stags made the numerical advantage count as Barnie West smashed through several would be tacklers to score in the clubhouse corner. Withers was again unsuccessful with the conversion.

Despite having more possession than in the first stanza, Stags struggled to break out of their own half but when they did they won a penalty on the visitors 22. Captain Jack Skidmore made the right decision to kick the goal and extend the lead to 20 points, meaning Casuals would need to score three converted tries in the last 20 minutes to win.

A quick kick off was not dealt with by Stags, which allowed Casuals to score but the conversion was missed. Casuals continued to throw all they had at Stags but the hosts front foot defence forced errors and relieved pressure each time.

With minutes remaining Stags conceded a penalty try, which in a moment of utter confusion the ref forgot who was to blame but decided someone needed to go to the bin. Skidmore decided that should be West, a wise move to get himself out of washing the kit.

Despite the two late tries, it was too little too late for Casuals as Stags closed out a memorable 23-15 victory.

Leading leader Coach Leader was thrilled with the result, saying “I am thrilled with the result.

“It was easily our best performance of the season, particularly our defence which was all heart.

“To a man every player put in good performances, and along with Conner there are notable mentions for Jed Adkins and Richard North, but our man of the match goes to Chris Irons who held his own against a very technical opposition front row, caried with vigour and personified the above average efforts.

“All of the tries were well taken – Conner in particular had a great game – the botox he had in the week clearly reduced his drag as he was rapid with ball in hand so maybe it is something the big boys up front could do to get a bit quicker” mused Leader.

Captain Skidmore added “I am very proud of the teams efforts today, everything Casuals threw at us we handled.

“If we played in the right areas a bit more we probably could have won by more but we lacked a bit of tactical kicking.

“JJ Ward has the ten shirt and he seems to think he is Owen Farrell now, although one kick I saw he threw the ball up above his head before kicking it so he can probably spend the week off at Leaders kicking school

“The challenge for us is to carry this performance into the next block of four games on the lead up to Christmas” concluded Skidmore

Stags have a week off now, before an away game at Oakham on the 30th