Ives hopes of reaching their national final ended after a fine match contested by two sides keen to run the ball in the glorious sunshine.
The many hundreds of supporters were enthralled by a could have gone either way.
Ives started the better, but stubborn defence saw Ollie Bartlett held up over the line. After the escape, Coalville surged upfield. A quickly taken penalty by the scrum half, who sniped and make line breaks all game, saw them to within 5 metres of Ives line. With the defence finally stretched they opened the scoring.
Immediately from the kick off, Ives regained possession. As they entered the visitors’ 22, Oliver Giglio took matters into his own hands. A strong, bullocking run took him to the line for a fine individual try.
In the build-up, Ives lost front row strongman Tommy Newman to injury, which led to a reshuffling of resources in the pack. Coalville took advantage to boss a couple of scrums and gained territory.
Another quickly taken penalty by Coalville’s 9 saw him dash 40 metres untouched to score.
Back came the Bulls. A perfect lineout saw clean ball for the backs. John Paxton delayed his pass and Paul Ashbridge took an incisive line through the Coalville defence to score.
The rest of the half saw both teams have opportunities, but defences held out. Halftime 12-14.
With conditions so warm, both teams were making multiple changes to have fresh legs on the field. The start of the half again saw both sides have chances, but none was converted.
Finally, Coalville went over after narrowing the Ives defence and converting the overlap.
As was the nature of the game, Ives came straight back and pounded the visitors’ defence. Cullan Smy took a leaf out of his opposite numbers book and tapped a penalty to dodge his way over to score.
It was still a 2-point game with only six minutes left on the clock. Ives threw everything they had at Coalville. But, their ambition proved their undoing as Coalville’s defence forced hurried passes that went to ground. Twice in the dying moments, Coalville pounced on loose balls to scamper the length of the field to score. All agreed, the final scoreline did not reflect the mighty close nature of the game, which was a splendid spectacle for the neutral. Of which there were none!
Whilst disappointed with the result the DoR, Duncan Williams, and Head Coach, Josh Dear, both reflected with pride on the achievements of the new look Ives. Last June the ambitions were for all the players to enjoy their rugby, target the H&P cup with 2nd XV, maintain league position for 1st XV and have a cup run. The atmosphere at the Chicken Shack and comments of appreciative spectators made clear that all goals were achieved, even bettered. Bring on 2025/26.