Mannerians........................15

Loughborough...................44

THE Showground was boggy and shrouded with fog, and Mannerians’ performance was much the same.

Individuals did alright, notably man-of-the-match George Hutchinson and the relentless Max Crampton, but the collective was very poor.

Mannerians played without passion or any kind of cohesion and the defining difference from the previous two outings was that they capitulated from the first whistle rather than waiting till the end.

And so it was that Loughborough claimed their first try, though they didn’t in truth have to try very hard. A couple of missed tackles, poor defensive alignment, try scored and duly converted.

The same followed shortly afterwards, then Mannerians had their best period, with sustained pressure after a decent lineout leading to a good score for George Hutchinson. Brother and captain Edward converted, but then Mannerians sat back and allowed the visitors to regain their 14-point cushion after another well worked, but scarcely challenged try.

The gap was narrowed further by another George Hutchinson try, a stoic effort created by unusually robust Mannerian rucking then slick hands from the dainty Chris Westwood, Will Moroney and Denzil Bowyer.

But Loughborough soon got their inevitable riposte and by half time Mannerians were pretty much resigned to damage limitation.

Another little flurry of quality, inspired by the welcome return from injury of Ben Sizer, saw Mannerians get a few penalty chances, one of which the captain put over, but in trying to create chances by kicking to get lineouts in Loughborough territory Mannerians simply couldn’t exact any control over these set pieces and opportunities were lost.

Despite this it looked as though George Hutchinson was going to earn a well-deserved hat-trick following a typical break from Tom Elsworth, but the referee adjudged the pass to have been forward.

Had Hutchinson been wearing a black shirt with a silver fern on it, the pass would most certainly have been perfect and the try thus fine and splendid.

But there you go.

Mannerians then proceeded to add lack of discipline to their collection of other faults, as they became frustrated by the referee’s lack of action at Loughborough’s regular infringements and became all too verbal in venting this frustration.

A late Loughborough score took Mannerians’ opposition past 40 points for the third successive week – a trend they will be anxious to stem when they make the long trip to Sleaford on Saturday.

In his customary summing up after the game, manager Joe Oldfield was equally frustrated: “The simple fact is that until this team starts training together and playing together as a unit more regularly it’s always going to difficult at this level.”

He then expanded: “We’ve not suddenly become a bad team, but the standard of opposition is considerably better than we had to deal with in our meteoric rise.