Outstanding performance by Keyworth 2s to round off a great league campaign.

A strong Keyworth squad made the trip to Ashfield with high hopes but after the first 5 minutes, it was looking like it could be a long afternoon for the visitors as a strong Ashfield side made some very impressive drives upfield, using their large forwards to punch holes in the Keyworth defence, close to the breakdown.
However, after some good defensive work, Keyworth began to find their feet and after a scrum on the opposition 10m line, Lee Broadhead drove from the base and beat several defenders before off-loading to Mark Scott, in support, who beat the full back to score after 7 minutes. Stuart Clark added the conversion.
Keyworth’s joy though was short-lived as they failed miserably to gather the kick-off and from the resulting scrum, the Ashfield fly-half slotted the most imperious of drop goals to bring the home side right back into it, by making the score 7 - 3.
Ashfield tried to pin Keyworth in their own half, but on 19 minutes, young Tom Muncey put in a good run back, along the left-hand touchline before passing out of the tackle to Ian Gregory who cut inside to feed Lee Broadhead on the Ashfield 10m line. He immediately got into his stride, all 4 miles wide of it, and set off for the line, brushing defenders aside as he crashed over for yet another try this season. This made the score 12-3 to the visitors.
Half way through the first half, Keyworth made a number of changes to give the bench a run. Initially this caused a change in momentum and only great work in defence by Phil Parnham and Simon Starr kept Ashfield at bay. It was also about now that young Sam Tilaks started to find his feet and began putting in some cracking chips and downfield kicks to keep the home side guessing.
Keyworth were continually having to cope with some very robust play by some of the Ashfield players who didn’t seem concerned that they didn’t have a ball to play with. After one unseemly incident the referee brandished his yellow cards and both perpetrator and the unlucky Keyworth target were given 10 minutes in which to reflect.
The visitors then grabbed the next score, as Adam Waldron and Simon Starr drove young tyro Ashley Waldron over, for his first try for the 2nd XV, after good approach work from Neil Shanks from a tapped 5m penalty. Stuart Clark slotted the extra two points.
Next score went to Ashfield as they put together a good passage of play before crossing close to the Keyworth posts and added the conversion to cut the deficit to 19 – 10. With 5 minutes to the half, Alex Tsang ran the ball back at Ashfield, from just inside his 22. Beating 4 players he was eventually brought to ground on half-way before feeding his back row who moved the ball wide to Jason Holland who also beat several defenders as he then put Ian Gregory into a gap and the outside centre ran it in for a really great score. Tsangy kicked his first conversion to finish off what he had started. That made it 26 – 10 to Keyworth at the half, as they secured the bonus point.
Keyworth began the second half as they finished the first and it wasn’t long before Ian Gregory crossed for his second try. The forwards won good possession out wide on the Ashfield 10m line. Sam Tilaks found Jason Holland who threw a big cut-out pass to Gregory who crashed through several attempted tackles to score. Tsangy again added the kick from in front of the posts and the game was effectively over as a rugby contest.
One Ashfield player unfortunately then tried to turn it into a kick-boxing contest and after an unsightly mass brawl, in which there was no credit to either side, the home official brought the game to a premature close.
It was a sad end to a great team performance from Keyworth, who desperately wanted to play rugby. The performance typified the spirit within the side and the club as a whole this season.