Mansfield 30 v 17 Wellingborough

Wellingborough’s ill discipline cost them dearly this weekend as they went down 30-17 away at Mansfield.

Borough started well and matched their opponents in all areas of the game with Kyle Danns and Simon Driver making good yards in the forwards. The home side went into a 6 nil lead with two penalties but Borough hit back with 3 points from the boot of Pete Vickers.

The away side was making good ground into the Mansfield 22, but a silly penalty was given away and as a result the Home winger ran the ball from 60 yards to score. From the restart Mansfield again pinned Borough back and a poor chase to a clearance kick saw the home winger score again.

Vickers had words with his players which seemed to spur his team on and they worked their way back up the park. On the stroke of half time Vickers dummied his way through to score after good work from the forwards. He also added the extras to make the half time score 18-10.

The second half again started with both teams matching each other but Mansfield’s better discipline was to win them the game. First John Cartwright was sin binned for tripping an opposition player and with him off the pitch 3 penalties were kicked by the Mansfield 10 who kicked brilliantly all game. George Shipman was substituted with Ollie Keeves coming on, but after just ten minutes was sin binned and more points were kicked.

The final minutes of the game were all Wellingborough's as they searched for a consolation score. Every player was involved in the build up and after Vickers and Jack Bryan set the ball up Cartwright made up for his sin binning to cross the line. Vickers again converting with the last kick of the game. Mansfield winning 30-17.

Captain Vickers said afterwards; “I have mixed feelings after the game. We played very well for most of the game and we matched Mansfield throughout but our poor discipline let us down. We gave away too many penalties which cost us dearly. If you take away all the points they kicked through penalties we would have won 14-12 which just goes to show how bad it was. We need to improve on this as we have a massive game against S&L next week.”