Mantella’s double piles more gloom on Carnegie

LONDON Scottish continued to pile on the misery for Yorkshire Carnegie as they came away with a well-earned three try to one victory.

Carnegie just can’t seem to catch a break at the moment and remain bottom of Championship table with just one win from their opening eight matches.

Yorkshire director of rugby Chris Stirling was disappointed with both the result and the performance of his side. “Tonight was the first time that I’ve been extremely disappointed with the way we played,” he said.

“I think we lacked accuracy and some of our work was pretty lethargic. What we asked the boys to do in the first half they didn’t do until about five minutes before halftime.”

In contrast, London Scottish winger Miles Mantella was delighted with his own two-try performance as well as his teammates after getting the late call to start following Charlie Ingall’s withdrawal through illness.

He said: “We’ve had a tough couple of weeks and only two wins so far. There were a couple of honest meetings at the beginning of the week.

“We knew it was a big game with them being at the bottom and we knew they’d come out wanting to take it to us. We got a good start which is something we haven’t been doing so I’m very pleased.”

Carnegie were the architects of their own downfall as a couple of early penalties gifted Scottish great field position and the visitors began to build pressure.

The Exiles were rewarded when a high clearance kick from Carnegie was caught in the wind and drifted backwards allowing Joe Luca Smith to pounce on the loose ball.

Smith was brought down after a good recovering tackle, but Rob Stevenson eventually enjoyed the spoils of his side’s good fortune as he dove over the line inside the opening ten minutes.

It didn’t take long for Scottish to score again as Mantella grabbed his first of the game underneath the posts. Jacob Perry converted, having missed the previous one.

Carnegie finally woke up and replied on the half hour mark through Chris Elder but it was Scottish who were firmly in control.

The second half was more of an even affair but Mantella scored again to extend the lead to 12 points.

Carnegie rallied and pounded the Scottish line with a number of phases inside the 22 – but the visitors somehow managed to soak up the pressure and hang on for a deserved win.