Rugby: Nottingham are worthy winners

NOTTINGHAM gave themselves a great chance of clinching a play-off place after beating Jersey 20-13 in their re-arranged RFU Championship fixture.

The original game was controversially postponed at the last minute as the St Peter pitch was unplayable.

It was certainly a lot better this time, but it was still heavy after the recent bad weather and that made life difficult for both sides.

Nottingham did well after being reduced to 13 men at one stage following yellow cards to Joe Duffey and Michael Holford.

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But a much-improved second-half performance saw them clinch the points and consolidate second spot in the table.

The home side shocked Nottingham with an early converted try, but they suffered a set-back when Mark Foster was sent to the sin bin.

James Arlidge missed the resulting penalty but soon made amends with Nottingham's first points, making it 7-3 at the break.

Both defences did well in testing conditions, but another Arlidge penalty, early in the second-half, brought the visitors back to within a point.

Nottingham slowly began to get the upper hand and skipper Brent Wilson finished off a pushover effort.

The conversion from Arlidge made it 7-13 to Nottingham.

But Jersey were far from finished and hit back well forcing back into their own 22.

But all they had to show for their pressure was a Michael Le Bourgeois penalty.

Another Wilson pushover and Arlidge conversion gave Nottingham a ten-point lead before a long-range penalty from Le Bourgeois made it 13-20.

The home side battled to salvage something from the game late on.

But the Green and Whites held on strongly to take the points.