Nailsea & Backwell carried last week’s excellent form into this week’s game with Oldfield at the West End Ground.
Nailsea opened the scoring after only three minutes when a well placed kick through from Scrum Half Jamie Sullivan saw the ball forced into touch near the five metre line. Nailsea won the ball and Hooker Ryan Barrow crashed over for a try. Oldfield replied five minutes later when good handling considering the conditions saw a score out wide.
Just before the half hour Nailsea set up a line out deep into the Oldfield half for Prop Ciaran Askew to drive over from the resultant maul. Just after the half hour, sustained pressure on the Oldfield line saw the ball moved through the hands, defying the wet & windy conditions, for Oldfield to run out of defenders and Nailsea Centre Ryan Love go over for an excellent try.
Prior to half time, further sustained pressure on the Oldfield line saw Nailsea move the wet ball through the hands for Centre Jamie Elswood to score, and convert the bonus point try to make it 22- 5 at the half.
It took fully twenty minutes into the second half for the scoring to resume. Following a five metre scrum on Oldfield’s line, Number 8 Luke Caswell picked up and drove over. Ten minutes later, loose play from Oldfield saw Nailsea Captain Luke Sharp gather a kick and set off on one of his rampaging runs. Sharp linked up with the backs for Wing Harrison Gould to fly over in the corner.
In the final play of the game, a line out to Oldfield close to their line was picked off by Mike Frohlich, the driving maul was formed and Number 8 Luke Caswell broke free to drive over for his second and Nailsea’s final try to make the final score 41-5.
Considering the conditions this was a top drawer performance by the Nailsea squad. Head Coach Tony Hill praised the work done by new Forwards Coach, Bristol Bears’ Yann Thomas stating, ‘Yann’s arrival has been absolutely fantastic for the team. His influence has been almost instant. He’s given our forwards a new focus and direction and they are responding brilliantly. This performance was one of the most complete for some years. Our challenge is to back it up next week.'
Next week Nailsea travel to old foes St Bernadettes. Kick-off is at 3pm.
