Mansfield exit national cup at Wensleydale and their women end season with narrow defeat

Despite taking an early lead, Mansfield were no match for a very powerful Wensleydale pack, who were able to utilise their rolling maul to great effect.

Mansfield's women's team also ended their season in defeat with a narrow 24-21 home defeat by Sleaford.

But being just their second full season, the club have been excited to see the development from last season to this.

While the results haven’t always gone their way, performances like Saturday have been exceedingly common with both power and pace shown in spades.

The opposition have been competitive and combative and no team has had an easy time of it.

Both teams in this game gave it their all and produced a fantastic end of season showcase.

The scoreline may not have come out in Mansfield’s favour but that will only feed their determination for next season.

Head coach Dean Blake said: “I’m super proud of how well we kept fighting but ultimately we just gave ourselves too much to do.”

That indeed was ultimately the home team’s downfall.

Sleaford shot into an early 12-0 lead with two tries, one converted.

Both came from swift attacking play that the Blue-and-Whites were simply unable to defend against.

The home team needed to get something on the board to ensure the already-somewhat-daunting uphill climb didn’t become an Everest.

They were able to do that with some powerful, punching runs through the forwards. This allowed a good deal of forward progression as the pack made sure to recycle the ball and set a good platform.

For much of the season, the home team have shunned the wide angles to try and shear through the middle, cutting directly into the heart of the opposition defence.

While this sometimes doesn’t work, Kelly Yates made sure it did by bursting through the defence from close range and getting her team on the board.

Lainah Corah added the extras to close the gap, 12-7 to the visitors.

The next two tries came from the visitors and showed the variety they had in their game.

The first showed the power of the pack as a lineout became a driving maul that sucked in many of the home defenders.

This created some territory to spread the ball wide and exploit some of the space that had opened up, dotting down out by the touchline.

A difficult conversion was missed but the lead was stretched to 17-7. The second try came from out of nowhere.

With the home team in possession and applying constant pressure to the opponent’s line, it seemed like only a matter of time before the gap on the scoreboard was closed again.

However, the home team gave away a penalty barely 5m from their opponent’s line and a quick tap saw the Sleaford winger, who was a firecracker all afternoon, outstrip almost everyone to run the length of the pitch and add her team’s fourth of the game before half time.

An easier conversion was slotted and the visitors went in to half time with a comfortable 24-7 lead.

The second half needed the Blue-and-Whites to show some real grit and determination to get themselves back in the game.

That’s exactly what they did with joint players-of-the-match Sarah Payne and Elodie Fleet making absolute nuisances of themselves whenever they were given the ball.

The second 40 was brutal at times with bodies strewn all over the pitch.

Neither team was willing to give an inch and fought for every ball in every ruck.

Defence was solid and both of the home team’s tries came from persistent, controlled phases of play.

The first came from Emily Bingley, a complete menace all afternoon, who picked an excellent support line to receive a quite sublime offload from Corah.

Barrelling through the defence, she added another try to cap off an impressive season.

A successful conversion from Hannah Blake saw the home team close the gap to 24-14 and get themselves back in the game.

The final try of the game was another example of Mansfield’s ability to work through the phases and build some real territory.

It started with a Sleaford penalty that the home team were able to turn over.

From there, it was simply a case of being patient and recycling the ball until Corah could find a gap and crash through to add her name to the scoresheet.

Another successful conversion by Blake took the score to 24-21 and a very exciting final quarter.

Unfortunately, the Blue-and-Whites were just unable to find the score that would put them in the lead. Sleaford’s defence, particularly the speed with which they got to the breakdown and the sheer numbers involved, slowed down any quick ball that Mansfield wanted.

This, combined with the clock being against them, saw Mansfield try things that just weren’t working that saw a potential attacking phase come to an end.

penalty here, a dropped ball there, the Sleaford defence pressured every area it could and just managed to frustrate the home team enough to stop them securing that elusive fourth try.

That said, Mansfield’s defence was also outstanding in the second half.

Nowhere is that more evident than the scoreboard, where the visitors were unable to add to their tally at all despite amassing four tries in the first half.

Ultimately, those early scores just proved too big a gap for Mansfield to close against a very determined and structured Sleaford side.

As games go, even if the scoreboard didn’t agree, it was a pretty spectacular way to end a season and shows there is plenty more to come from this team in the future.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​