High score for Bosworth despite taking eyes off ball at times

Market Bosworth 65 Northampton Casuals 19

THE visitors to Cadeby Lane on Saturday were bottom of the league team Northampton Casuals.

They have only won two games this season and would you believe one of them was against Market Bosworth at their place earlier in the season, so you never know what this team might turn up with.

Bosworth produced a promising start, keeping play in the visitors’ half for the first few minutes and culminating in the referee awarding Bosworth a penalty in front of the posts which Joe Randon slotted over to open the scoring.

Casuals soon got their act together and looked threatening, only to fluff a pass between the threes, which was picked up by Bosworth captain, Harry Milner, on the half-way line and running with the ball all the way to within five metres of the line and passing across to winger Tom Randon to get the touchdown and for his brother Joe to succeed with the conversion.

Bosworth continued to increase the pressure in these opening minutes with good stuff from the threes getting them deep into the visitors’ half ending in a line-out from a Joe Randon cross kick.

Bosworth won the line-out and passed the ball through the threes, to and fro across the try line, but to no avail and having conceded a few penalties Bosworth found themselves back on the half-way line.

It was from midfield that Bosworth number eight, Ricky Wickwar, produced one of his solo runs avoiding every opposing player and touching down under the posts, but for some reason, the conversion attempt went wide.

Within minutes the Bosworth threes set up a well worked handing move again to send Tom Randon over in the corner for his second try of the game but again too difficult for the kicker.

It was starting to look like a big score for the home side when within another couple of minutes, the Bosworth threes mounted a similar move and this time sent second row, Robbie Allen, over to touch down under the posts giving Joe Randon an easier conversion attempt, which this time was successful.

It had taken the visitors half an hour to acclimatise and eventually mount an attack on the Bosworth line, it was their second row player who caught Bosworth napping and ran through unopposed to score under the posts giving their kicker an easy conversion. This seemed to shock Bosworth back into the right frame of mind and their threes penetrated deep into the Casuals’ half, resulting in a quick penalty followed by a line-out won a few metres from the line from where they again passed the ball to and fro across the pitch until hooker, Finn, was able to dive through to score Bosworth’s fifth try which Randon converted.

As the clock ticked down to halftime Bosworth seemed to lose concentration again giving the visitors a couple of quick penalties, then a third for back chat to the referee from which they were near enough to catch Bosworth off-guard and be able to run in their second try unopposed capped by the conversion giving a half time score of 34–14.

From the restart Bosworth were on the move again getting closer and closer to the line and this time it was prop, Ben Thompson’s turn to ground the ball for Bosworth’s sixth try, converted again by Randon although assisted by the wind.

Casuals started to make a game out of it with both teams moving the ball deep into each other’s half but it was Bosworth who ended up with the reward when centre Milner was able to avoid one or two tackles to add another try to the score which Randon failed to convert.

Bosworth kept up the pressure, attacking all the time but getting no further than the half-way until one of the Casuals props was shown a yellow card by the referee. To start with, Casuals seemed to get the better of being a player down but it was not long before Bosworth’s captain, Milner, was able to run nearly half the length of the pitch to score his second try and Bosworth’s eight, but the wind proved too strong for the kicker. It was then wing forward, Gilbert’s, turn to demonstrate some nifty footwork mesmerising several of the opposition and running in a solo effort to increase the score again.

Bosworth took their eye off the ball and their foot off the pedal for an instant to let Casuals run in their third try but a hurried drop kick for the conversion missed, no doubt in an attempt to save time and chase the bonus point.

However, it was Bosworth who instead increased their score in the dying minutes when they repeated their cross pitch handling, which had been so good all game, this time for Joe Randon to run into the post protector with the ball to claim the points but not the extra two.

Thirteen tries and eight conversions between them and a high scoring weekend in the league, as well with three teams scoring over 50 points.

Bosworth are still fourth in the league but only six points clear of Vipers who are in fifth.