Nottingham Outlaws are through to the Midlands Premiership Final after a hard fought semi-final victory over Birmingham Bulldogs at Lenton Lane on Saturday. The win takes the Outlaws into their first final appearance since 2015 and avenges a home defeat at the hands of the Bulldogs only three weeks ago.
Coach Shepherd made three changes to the side that lost at Sherwood a fortnight ago with Sam Andrews and Mike Bennett boosting the forward ranks and Josh Webb returning from injury with a place the bench.
It was an interesting clash in styles straight from the get-go, with the bigger Birmingham pack coming down the middle, looking to offload and the Outlaws using wider runners to find space. However early nerves from both sides saw the ball going to ground on a regular basis.
After 20 minutes of even play Birmingham opened the scoring after a penalty gave them good field position resulting in an overlap and they went in at the corner for a 0-4 lead.
Stung by this reversal the Outlaws fought back and 5 mins later a quick play the ball saw captain Coryn Ward barge through two defenders to score. Ashby added the extras to nudge the Outlaws ahead 6-4.
It was a lead the Outlaws were destined to keep for the rest of the game!
Not for the first time this season the Outlaws made a hash of the restart and off the back of it Birmingham looked like they would score only for Wigglesworth and Goodwin to force Birmingham into touch.
Buoyed by this the Outlaws hit back and at 35 mins a great Hopkins break took the Outlaws into the Birmingham red zone before the ball left to winger Jimmy Goodwin to power past opposite number to stretch the lead to 10-4.
However on the stroke of half time. Birmingham scored after a quick play of the ball and some weak tackling allowed them to run through and score and cut the Outlaws lead to 10-8 half time.
The Outlaws forwards started the second stanza on top, tackling well with Wigglesworth starting to turn the screw using his long kicking to relieve pressure and force a number of errors by the visitors, culminating in a Burgin cut out pass from dummy half to Hopkins who took it superbly to score in the right hand corner to stretch the lead out to 14-8.
The Outlaws smelt blood and three minutes later the ball moved to Strachan who opened up the Birmingham defence with an inside ball to Ashby who shot through a gap before beating the full back to score. Wigglesworth added the extras to cement the lead at 20-8.
Despite a few nervy moments the Outlaws managed to keep their line intact for the remainder of the match for a hard earned but ultimately well deserved 20-8 victory.
After the game there were more than a few names in the hat for the man of the match award but for the second match running it was Luke Wadding who took the bubbly with yet another fine performance,
With a final appearance in the bag the players enjoyed their post match celebrations with the final words coming from a satisfied coach Joe Shepherd who commented “It was great to see the lads bounce back from what was a demoralising defeat against Birmingham only three weeks ago. To nil them in the second half was very pleasing because they have some terrific ball runners. It was also great to see the team putting into practice the things we had been covering in training in the lead up to the game”
All roads lead to Birmingham next weekend as the Outlaws go in search of silverware with a tough looking Telford team standing in their way!