Mansfield hold off Nuneaton Old Edwardians’ fightback in dreadful weather for victory

This was indeed a game of two halves.

The last couple of weeks seem to have been a compilation of Britain’s worst conditions as a brief period of snow and freezing temperatures gave way to persistent bouts of rain.

On Saturday it was calm for the first half, which allowed a rampaging Mansfield to build a healthy half-time lead.

However, the second half saw both an absolute deluge of rain and a ferocious fightback from the visitors that allowed them to dominate the possession and territory.

Considering the conditions it was a thrilling game to watch, though maybe not for the faint-hearted. Nonetheless, the Blue & Whites were able to weather two storms to take the full five points.

Head coach Nathan Hill was happy enough with the result considering the conditions:

“I think we did a lot of things right in the first half but our discipline nearly cost us in the second,” he said.

The first half largely belonged to Mansfield, amassing an early lead of 10 points within the first 10 minutes.

The first five of those points came after a period of work almost from the kick off that saw territory being eaten up.

A final drive saw Steve Reddington pierce through the defence to register the first try.

A successful conversion was followed up mere minutes later by a penalty, both from the boot of Taran Elms, to see Mansfield very comfortably 10-0 in the lead.

Nuneaton OEs hadn’t come to just roll over though and were more than willing to throw the ball around and see what they could do.

Unfortunately, that ambition was often undone by the execution, with the slippery, though not sodden, ball making it difficult to hold on to.

Mansfield took full advantage of this to disrupt and turn over as much ball as they could.

The result was that the visitors had plenty of possession but just couldn’t convert it.

The Blue & Whites fared much better in that regard.

A miscommunication at the ruck from the visitors saw the ball left unattended.

Swiftly turned over by the home team, some sublime passes were intercut with some rather speculative ones.

It didn’t matter because the passes found their mark and ended with Jacob Hutchinson completing the brilliant 60m counter attack.

A successful by Elms saw the score increase to 17-0.

A yellow card immediately from the resulting kickoff didn’t help the visitors as Mansfield were able to secure more ball and build again.

A powerful break from Joe Symcox saw him create space to offload to Will Lim who managed to evade the final tacklers and cross the line.

Elms completed the first half score with a successulf conversion for 24-0. That wasn’t the end of the half though.

With little time remaining, there were cracks starting to show in Mansfield’s discipline as they began to concede numerous penalties.

Their defence still stood firm and repelled numerous Nuneaton attacks but, ultimately, the dam had to breach and the visitors were able to register their first points of the game.

An unsuccessful conversion attempt from out wide bought the half to a close at 24-5.

Then the second half saw a reversal of everything seen in the first half.

The weather, at first gradually, deteriorated and the visitors managed to find their mojo at half term and really put the Blue & Whites to the sword.

As the rain continued to lash down, swirling round Eakring Road, Mansfield’s discipline crumbled. The home team were able to win the scrum contest and disrupt a lot of lineouts but in open play they were getting on the wrong side of the referee and conceding numerous penalties, at one point going down to 13 men.

This gave the visitors the majority of the possession and territory.

This was a much more cohesive half from the visitors, which was impressive considering the conditions.

They managed to score 21 points in the second half, with each one coming after a barrage of phases that the home team did exceptionally well to repel.

With shirts becoming increasingly sodden and hands becoming increasingly colder, it was becoming impossible to grip any opposing player’s shirt and breaks through the defence were being exploited well.

The Matchday sponsor was club president Mike Copestake, who was celebrating his 80th birthday, and he made a fine choice of Man of the Match with Oliver Avison, who was immense during this game and grows in stature every week.

Mansfield did get one more try for their collection, a rare piece of possession seeing a chip over the top collected nicely by Reece Flowers-Lane, who managed to evade a couple of determined cover defenders to secure the bonus point.

A successful conversion by Elms saw the final score read 31-26 to the home team.

This really was a game of two halves in almost every respect.

The weather was awful during the second half and, considering this was the period where Nuneaton OE scored the bulk of their points, then full credit to them.

Mansfield were still able to disrupt the ball in the set piece and showed in the first half that they are able to be clinical in both attack and defence.

The discipline in the second half will be a worry but the fact they only conceded three tries in that period can be seen as a silver lining on some very literal black clouds.