Nottingham Outlaws’ hopes of a top-four finish were finally extinguished on Saturday when they succumbed to a 34–24 defeat at Coventry Bears.
The Outlaws battled hard and managed to notch four tries of their own, but once again it was their defensive frailties that eventually led to their undoing.
The match started poorly for the Outlaws as they struggled to contain a much larger Bears outfit, and the home side roared into a 10–0 lead in the opening eight minutes. However, the Outlaws managed to stem the flow with a great solo effort from Uchenna Okereke, who beat three Bears defenders to score a fine solo try and peg the lead back to 10–6. However, the Bears crept two scores ahead again on the twenty-minute mark when poor defence on the Outlaws’ line saw the Bears extend their lead, but good footwork by Rogerson saw the big prop go over to reduce the deficit to 16–12.
Not for the first time this season, the Outlaws’ defence crumbled either side of half-time as the Bears scored two tries in the final ten minutes of the first half and then added another in the first five minutes after half-time. With the score now standing at 34–12, the game was effectively over, and the travelling fans feared another fifty-point defeat was on the cards, especially when their main playmaker, Jacob Rigby, left the field with an ankle injury.
To their credit, the Outlaws battled back, and Josh Burgin grabbed his first try of the season with a nice show-and-go. Then, on the sixty-minute mark, Jack Jonson strode through a gap and scored a fine solo effort to peg the Bears’ lead back to 34–24 with plenty of time left on the clock. Indeed, the Outlaws piled on the attack and were desperately unlucky to have a try chalked off for Coryn Ward, who was adjudged to have been held up in the act of scoring, and, even more controversially, a seemingly good try by Josh Rogerson was chalked off, with the referee judging that he had lost the ball in the act of scoring.
The Outlaws continued to pound away at the home try-line, but they could not add to their tally, and when the final whistle went, they knew that their top-four hopes had finally disappeared.
Despite the defeat, the Outlaws had battled bravely, and several players were in with a shout for the man-of-the-match award. However, it was newcomer Josh Rogerson who took the award with a fine performance in attack and defence.
