It was clear that Nottingham were intent on playing expansive rugby all evening. Although it was fast, it was a little too loose, particularly in the opening 40 minutes, and it was only when the Archers started to take a little more care with their offloads in the second half that they were able to pull away.
Starting hooker Jack Dickinson described the different challenge that playing against the Army presented: “It’s slightly more unstructured than we’re used to but it’s good in that it gives us the opportunity to test ourselves in different ways than we would in the Championship. We wanted to try and get our brand of rugby on the pitch, sometimes just a little bit of decision-making was awry but this was a good chance to fine tune some of those skills.”
It was the Army who made all the early running and dominated territory in the opening exchanges. Just when it looked like Nottingham would be able to clear their lines number eight Senitiki Nayalo breached the green and white defences to run in from 20 metres.
After Nottingham had thrown the ball around with a little too much abandon, their first real free-flowing move came in the 12th minute as Ryan Olowofela broke through enemy lines and offloaded to winger Harry Graham. He outpaced all the covering red shirts to dot down in the left hand corner. Tom Threlfall’s conversion attempt struck the upright but that was his only miss of the night as he went on to win the Player of the Match award.
Almost straight from the kick off Olowofela was on hand again to pick up a loose ball just inside his own half before sprinting away to score under the sticks to put Nottingham ahead.
As the game entered its second quarter, more handling errors by the Archers meant they were pinned back in their own 22 and it was the Army’s turn to go through the hands, culminating in full back Connor O’Reilly crossing for the visitors to narrow Nottingham’s lead to just two points.
The Army’s resurgence was hampered however, when Kody Vereti was sent to the bin on 27 minutes, and Nottingham took advantage by spending some time deep in enemy territory. Vereti has actually appeared 16 times for Nottingham this season but that didn’t phase Dickinson: “Kody tried his best to steal lineout calls but he barely remembers ours so he couldn’t remember what they were doing anyway!”
Looking to offload at every opportunity, but without the necessary accuracy, the Archers got pushed back into their own half. That was until Dickinson sprinted free and, faced with only fly half Ethan Riley to beat, under the guise of looking for support, he veered this way and that before putting in a glorious step move and jogged in under the posts, making the half time score Nottingham 19-10 British Army.
The try scorer took the opportunity to reminisce: “I was rolling back the years to when I used to be a little bit quicker than I am now! It was nice to have a bit of ball in space.”
Nottingham book-ended the second half with two pairs of tries. On the offensive right from the whistle, David Williams’ dancing feet created an opening to work the ball to James Cherry to dive over. And moments later Toby Venner put in a grubber that turned the defence and Graham accelerated past all-comers to score in the corner.
The game then became a bit of a midfield battle with both sides making a number of changes as well as there being a yellow card apiece. Around the midpoint of the half Aniseko Sio was binned for a high tackle as the Army were looking to get a move going to exit their 22.
The Army couldn’t make the numerical advantage count, however, unlike Nottingham who, once Nayalo departed after a series of penalties in quick succession, turned to their forward battery with Jay Ecclesfield providing the final pick and go to extend the home side’s lead to 30 points on 69 minutes.
It was an errant pass by the Army that allowed Ecclesfield in to double his tally just under ten minutes later.
But there was just time for another familiar face, in the form of Levi Roper, to benefit from an Army overload down the left wing to make the final score Nottingham 47-15 British Army.