DEWSBURY CELTIC 34 OUTLAWS 0
Report by Ant Bullick
Nottingham Outlaws slumped to a seven try defeat at the hands of Dewsbury Celtic and virtually ended any hopes of making the end of season play-offs.
It was a must-win game for the Outlaws who before kick-off sat two points behind seventh-placed Dewsbury and needed a victory to firmly throw their hat into the ring for a top-six finish.
However, Dewsbury ran out 34-0 winners in the worst performance from Nottingham this season.
It was never going to be a smooth 80 minutes for the Outlaws as they travelled up north without several first team players and with players playing out of position to combat that.
Matters weren't helped when Simon Morton, playing hooker, suffered an ankle injury after twenty minutes to end his participation in the contest.
The injury came with the Outlaws threatening to level the scores after going 6-0 down early on.
Nottingham were piling the pressure on in Dewsbury territory but a high pass from Jimmy Lewis was intercepted and returned 75 metres for the score.
The ball spent most of the time in the Dewsbury half but Nottingham couldn't make the pressure count with three golden opportunities wasted and were made to pay on the half-hour mark.
Dewsbury regained possession after Nottingham lost the ball on the try line and waltzed down the field of play before an inside pass attacked the ruck and sliced open the Nottingham defence to double the advantage to 12-0
Nottingham shot themselves in the foot on the ensuing kick-off when Lewis put the ball straight out of play to gift field position to the home side and poor defence followed to allow Dewsbury to extend their lead to 16-0 after scoring in the corner.
The Outlaws were trying desperately to get themselves back in the game but were not clinical enough with ball in hand to pose any real threat to their counterparts.
A minute before half-time and the Outlaws almost handed Dewsbury a try after confusion between Alex Hazledine and his full-back Phil Artley on a high bomb. Luckily for them, Dewsbury knocked on at the try line.
The second half kicked off with Nottingham playing down the slope as they looked to drag themselves back into the game.
Unfortunately for the travelling support, this never materialised and the second half belonged to Celtic.
Andy Cassetari, playing in just his second game since arriving from Australia, was penalised for a knock-on and took a blow to the head in the process which ultimately ended his afternoon and Dewsbury worked it down the right hand side to make it 20-0.
Five minutes later it was 24-0 to Dewsbury and heads dropped in the Nottingham ranks.
Frustration grew amongst the Outlaws and one too many words from Bryn Waldram directed at the referee resulted in the loose forward being sin-binned.
Dewsbury made the one-man advantage count immediately to make it 30-0 and on the stroke of full time an Adam Millward offload went to ground and Dewsbury gathered possession to put the icing on the cake and make the score 34-0.
Head Coach Martin Crick was quick to praise the opposition, but also acknowledged the failings of his side.
"Dewsbury fully deserved that victory today. They were enthusiastic from minute 1 to minute 80, they ran with purpose every time they had the ball and were in our faces when we had possession.
"We just had a bad day at the office. As seems to be our story this season, we had a lot of players missing which doesn't help but that was by far our worst performance this year.
"I've told the lads that that is the first and last time they play like that. There are a lot of dejected players after that performance but we have to pick ourselves up quickly as we have another trip next weekend to face Kippax.
"They have to play for that badge on their shirts every minute of every game remaining this season.
"Until it is mathematically impossible to make the play-offs we will keep going and we are going to play like the Outlaws of the past couple of seasons and aim to upset the odds.
"George Strachan was our man-of-the-match by a country mile. He moved from the forwards to play in the halves and he gave his all from start to finish. He was tremendous."
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