Yorkshire Carnegie 10-62 Nottingham (RFU Championship) 31.01.20

After four defeats on the bounce it was good to see Nottingham return to winning ways in a convincing manor as they comfortably beat Yorkshire Carnegie by 52 points at Headingley last night.

In truth Neil Fowkes sides’ performances have been much better than results of late suggest, narrowly losing to runaway leaders Newcastle Falcons last week they were always going to be too good for a Carnegie side rooted at the foot of the table without a win all season.

But the Green & Whites still had a job to do and they were destructive in what they did picking up five points on the road clearing any slim threat of danger and being dragged in to a relegation fight.

Nottingham ran home ten tries to one and took just seven minutes to open the scoring after the hosts were already down to 14 with a yellow card. Spittle going over for the first with Dolly kicking the extras to give the away side advantage on the night.

Yorkshire pulled a penalty back, their first points against Nottingham this season after having two previous shutouts in the Challenge Cup home and away games but Nottingham were back on track when Spittle again went over for a converted try to take the score to 3-14.

Cole added a further try before Spittle grabbed a first half hat-trick to take Nottingham in at the break leading 3-26.

An early second half try for Nottingham saw Williams score the first points before Millett got in on the action and just before the hour Spittle ran the length of the field for his fourth of the night.

Substitute Foley then went over before Yorkshire pulled one back and in the final minutes Spittle made it five for the night before Foley grabbed his second.

No doubt about the man of the match as Nottingham move up to seventh a good night all round and a confidence booster ahead of the trip to London Scottish next weekend.

Starting Team: Sean Scanlon, David Williams, Harry Strong, Luke Peters, Jack Spittle, Will Mellett, Alex Dolly, Tom Hill, Luke Cole, Oisin Heffernan, Ollie Chessum, Danny Qualter, Seb Cecil, George Cox, Josh Poullet.

Replacements: Ben Brownlie, Jamie Jack, Aniseko Sio, Llewelyn Jones, Will Owen, Murray McConnell, Will Simmonds, Ben Foley.

*Main image @RoyFrance9 packed with tries if not people at Headingley Stadium.