Spittle’s try signals start of Nottingham stampede

TIGHT-HEAD Osin Heffernan capped a classy second-half comeback by Nottingham with a lastminute bonus-point try.

Winger Jack Spittle’s try after half-time proved a turning-point for the Green & Whites, who had turned around 15-10 down, with two further tries in the last 15 minutes plus a Shane O’Leary drop-goal enough to seal victory.

Nottingham coach Neil Fowkes said: “I’m really pleased, we had to go through some adversity, there were five HIA’s but we toughed it out.

“Our lineout and our scrum hadn’t gone so well in the first half but I said if we score first the game is on and we settled down and executed.

“Fair play to Richmond that was one hell of a physical game; the way they play with energy and determination caused us problems.”

An early wayward line-out proved costly for Nottingham. Richmond’s ensuing dominant scrum led to ten phases deep in the Greens’ territory before centre Cameron Mitchell found a gap between lock Dan Qualter and Murray McConnell and offloaded to wing Jono Woodward to run in.

Despite Nottingham centre Gearoid Lyons and Spittle having to undergo HIA’s early in the first half, O’Leary kicked three points before full-back Sean Scanlon rocketed down the right to set up openside Jordan Coghlan to bundle over.

Richmond then enjoyed a spell of pressure in Nottingham territory following fullback Rob Kirby’s 40m touch-finder.

Five phases later scrum-half Luc Jones wriggled free to set up wing Simpson-Hefft to score before half-time.

Nottingham came out all guns blazing and took the lead as Spittle slipped away from two tackles to score by the posts.

A Kirby penalty retook the lead, extended on the 64th minute with another, after Nottingham fullback Sean Scanlon had a try ruled out for offside.

O’Leary grabbed a drop-goal after five phases on Richmond’s 5m line before a break by centre Luke Peters and Spittle pinned the home side back with Poullett eventually going over.

Heffernan then dotted down from a driving maul on the last play.

Richmond coach Steve Hill said: “We’re very disappointed we got nothing from the game. Our scrum was strong and put them under a lot of pressure but our execution once we made breaks wasn’t good enough.”