It's never great to lose by two scores at Kelham Road but despite some initial ominous signs, there was much to admire in this performance against the league leaders played in atrocious weather.

A few unfortunate, unforced errors soon after half time were enough to give Market Rasen victory but make no mistake, this was a performance full of determination and no little bravery against bigger, more physical visitors.

Newark were forced to play on the back foot for much of the first half but it is to our credit that the visitors could only manage a single try by the break. And all three of their tries came from rolling mauls as they used their power to rumble over the line following line outs deep in our 22.

The Lincolnshire sided created problems at the scrum and line out and for long periods Newark doggedly repelled their one-out runners close to the try line - repeatedly winning turnovers or forcing errors from the Market Rasen carriers and it wasn't until mid way through the first half that they were able to get that opening try.

Second row Dan Singer carried hard himself before leaving the field in the first half with a head injury but on the few occasions that Newark made ground, their progress was ruined by a succession of annoying penalties.

Despite those two early tries, Newark came back strongly in the second half , forcing Rasen to make plenty of tackles of their own. Number eight Ethan Mason (given the man of the match accolade by the visitors' captain) and new recruit Ben Samuels also caused problems for the visitors with some hard running. Second row Finn Bennett also showed up well as Newark began to take the fight to the visitors.

They were rewarded with a try from Harry Waterhouse after centre Calum Holmes found a gap to round off some slick handling from several players. Shortly afterwards Newark were denied a second try when the referee ruled the ball had been held up over the line. Unfortunate because that score would have earned us a losing bonus point. At least we were able to deny the visitors a fourth, bonus point of their own.

Given Rasen's first half set-piece dominance (though things improved markedly for Newark in the second half) the Kelham Road faithful could have been forgiven for expecting things to be a lot worse but this was a brave performance in defeat to the league leaders with some of the best defensive sets seen this season.