DERBY struck a key blow in the battle to claim the Midlands One East play-off spot by winning away at closest challengers Bugbrooke.
Victory in Saturday’s twice-postponed fixture in Northamptonshire saw Roxy Fearon’s men open up a 12-point cushion in second place, with a game in hand over Bugbrooke.
Playing up a slight slope but with a strong wind behind them, Derby were soon on the attack but struggling for rhythm, partly due to problems with the scrum.
However, the first bit of good possession went through the forwards and then the backs before Lewis Hancock took the final pass to score after eight minutes.
A nice tackle and steal by Ben Marlow, good breaks by Tom Taylor-Dawes and good support and interplay from Ben Coombes and Luke Frixou kept Derby probing and George Castledine kicked two out of three penalties to give the visitors an 11-0 lead after 25 minutes.
Bugbrooke had their own moments but too many handling errors cost them opportunities.
However, they turned over Derby possession, broke a tackle and put the ball through three pairs of hands to score an unconverted try in the 34th minute.
Derby hit back moments later with a driving maul, at which Bugbrooke infringed and Castledine slotted a penalty to make the half-time score 14-5.
Jamie Twigg, Phil Robinson and Chris Brown joined the action for the second half but the pattern of play continued to be stop-start.
The sides exchanged penalties before Bugbrooke added another to bring them to within a score of Derby.
Fearon’s men had a long period of pressure up near the Bugbrooke line but could not get a try.
The home number eight was yellow-carded and was joined in the sin bin shortly afterwards by Derby’s Ceri White.
Finally, after an infringement at the Derby line-out, a quick penalty was taken and a driving maul brought a try for Pete Wilcox, excellently converted by Castledine into the wind.
With less than 10 minutes left, the game was nearly safe but Bugbrooke scored a pushover try from a scrum.
Crucially, the conversion was missed, leaving Derby with an eight-point cushion and denying the hosts a losing bonus point.
“Apart from the fact we lost every scrum except for one, we did really well against a decent Bugbrooke side,” said Fearon.
“Tom Taylor-Dawes played really well, especially in the second half, and Sanjay Sharma also did a good job, defensively, making a lot of ground.
“We played well overall and came away with a win that puts us a little bit further clear in second place.”
Derby have eight league matches of the regular campaign remaining, with Mansfield at home next up.
Article source: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/feb/16/owen-farrell-england-ireland
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