Casuals kicked off their league campaign this week against league rivals away at Oakham suffering a narrow 24-20 defeat.

Casuals started well and the early stages of the game saw each side give each other little chance in open play to the opposition, other than a dominant scrum, Casuals with Benny Surtees-Wheat in his league debut having the better of his more experienced opposite number. Ill-discipline around the breakdown saw a compounding of errors by Casuals giving away ground to Oakham through penalties to put Casuals on the back foot. Oakham were able to capitalise with a simple move to open the scoring with a converted try.

Playing with the wind Oakham struggled to capitalise on this advantage without the help of penalties, yet they made progress up the field, with a kick to the corner from a penalty, resulting in a catch and drive to force their second try of the match. To increase their lead by 5 against the ascendency. This was soon followed up by the introduction of Ki Brian at 8 who had an immediate impact with strong carries alongside the impact Ryan Hancock at prop. An unconverted try from winger Mike Mitchell and an uncharacteristic missed penalty from Aidan Lawrence saw the hosts enjoying at 12-5 half time lead.

The 2nd half started poorly for Casuals, having lost skipper Niall Lawrence to injury, causing a short loss of shape in defence resulting in a breakaway try from Oakham. Casuals soon steadied the ship and pulled themselves back into the game with strong retention of possession and phase play and a bright debut from Cameron Clarke resulting in a converted try from Ki Brian despite being down to 14 men due to a yellow card for Kieran Davies, to bring the score line to 19-12.

Casuals continued to apply the pressure with Hancock bowling over to score, with the referee inexplicably reversing his original decision to award the try indicating that the ball was held up. Shortly after, casuals dominant scrum was again penalised for wheeling, which gave the opportunity for Oakham to score their last try of the game and earn the bonus point after spotting a gap in the casuals defensive line. Casuals continued to push to the end immediately returning to their structure earning a penalty for Aidan Lawrence to slot over and this time there was no way to doubt that Hancock’s hand got the ball to ground to score and conclude the 20 points. As the final whistle was blown, casuals were still on top, however, the clock beat them halting the chance of what would have been a bonus point try and deserved victory.

Final Score : 24 - 20