Nottingham 10-18 Ealing Trailfinders (RFU Championship) 10.01.20

Nottingham Rugby were beaten at the Bay last night for the first ever time by Ealing Trailfinders in what was a cracking Friday night advert for Championship Rugby.

The away side took an early lead with a fifth minute penalty and in a tense first half both teams defended well under some heavy attack at times with Nottingham finally given the chance to level in added on time of the opening 40 minutes.

Canadian kicker Shane O’Leary converted to level the scores at the break.

The opening ten minutes of the second half played much the same, tense and tight until 50 minutes in Reon Joseph scored for the Trailfinders the opening try of the match. Steven Shingler missed his conversion but just four minutes later Ealing went over again when Joseph slipped through with quick feet for his second of the night. Shingler added the extras to put the visitors 3-15 up but a yellow card for Alun Walker gave Nottingham a man which they could not take as things were to get worse for the home side when Shingler kicked over a penalty after the hour to make it 3-18.

A late rally by the home side ensured the final moments stayed interesting as Scanlon went over on 72 minutes before O’Leary added the extras but the two score margin was too big for Nottingham to overcome with the home side going down to a fifth league defeat of the season.

9^th placed Nottingham are now dangerously close to the bottom two all be it 14 points ahead of bottom of the table Yorkshire Carnegie who have so far this season lost all of their games.

Starting Team: Sean Scanlon, David Williams, Will Millett, Luke Peters, Ben Foley, Shane O’Leary, Murray McConnell, Aniseko Sio, Luke Cole, Ben Betts, Llewelyn Jones, Danny Qualter, Seb Cecil, Will Owen, Tui Uru

Replacements: Jake Farnworth, Jamie Jack, Oisin Heffernan, Tom Holmes, Josh Poullet, Alex Dolly, Harry Strong, Jack Spittle.

*Main image @chudphoto Nottingham fall to their fifth defeat of the season v Ealing.