Extra A 23 v Belsize Park 19

The Extra A welcomed high flying Belsize park to Silver Leys on Saturday for what promised to be a challenging top of the table encounter; our opponents having only lost one match so far this season. After a miserable morning, the sky cleared and conditions were ideal for the 20 strong Blues squad.

Stortford kicked off and were playing slightly against the strong wind in the first half. Early signs were promising for the blues, and after strong early carries from Mackenzie and Slade, a chip in behind the blitzing Belsize defence from Sperm saw a great chase from centres Tindall and Roberts put pressure on the opposing fullback on his own line. The Belsize scrum half, rushed by the blue defence sliced his kick straight into the arms of dangerous winger Craig 'Council Hale who needed no second invitation, and rounded his opposite man to score the first points of the game out wide; the tricky conversion was narrowly missed by Sperm. Another 10 minutes passed with the Blues absorbing waves of Belsize attack, with hard hits going in all over the park. It was Stortford who would strike next though, after being awarded a penalty just inside the opposition half fly half Sperm opted to have a shot at goal and neatly slotted the long range effort.

It was obvious that a team of Belsize Park's quality would fight back, and they did exactly that over the next 10 minutes; after breaking the line and offloading, it was only the fantastic cover defence of the hard-as-nails and ever reliable Stigdog that stopped the opponents scoring from the initial line break. However, although there were hearty defensive efforts on the line, the pressure eventually told and Belsize crashed over from short range to register their first score. The conversion was missed. The opposition, with their tails now firmly in the air would come straight back at us and it took them only another 5 minutes to score again, this time neat interplay down the right flank saw them go in in the corner; the extras were duly added with an impressive conversion from their 12. After some stern words under the posts the Blues fought back and after several strong forward phases- controlled expertly by Dean at scrum half- the Blues registered their next try, and a beauty it was. A delicate chip over the rush defence from Sperm saw Roberts chase through, catch the ball after a perfect bounce, and beat two defenders to score under the posts. Conversion added. The impressive Roberts scored again shortly after, following a strong midfield surge by Tindall the ball found it's way to Mikey who elusively rounded and fended some average Belsize tackling to go in out wide. Conversion missed by Sperm. The Blues spent the remainder of the half defending their own line, with smashing tackles going in from Baker, Macfie, Jones and one beautiful try saver from Doolan out wide. We held on until the whistle; 20-12 up at half time.

Half time saw the introduction of Finch for Whitehead, McKirdy for Mackenzie and Brough for Doolan. After some inspiring words from Macfie and Slade, and some new blood injected, our opponents got us underway for the second half. McKirdy immediately made an impact as he claimed the high restart and made a good 20 yards, beating 2 defenders on his way; unfortunately for Thomas, he apparently couldn't tell the difference between us and them, and made a neat offload directly to their 12. From this the opposition set the tone for the half and attacked ferociously. They forced several penalties which they put into the corner but our forwards stood firm and repelled or turned over 3 lineouts on our own 5m line; TV's Mr. Drew using his 'height' to steal one at the back and our stand in prop Prendy showing his experience to assist in the disruption of the opposition throw. Despite 15 minutes of pure pressure on our own line, the Blues managed to win a turnover and ship the ball wide to Tindall, who showed searing pace to exploit a gap, unfortunately his final pass was wayward so the try was not scored. We did however manage to stay in our opponents half for a further 5 minutes and force a penalty in front of the posts which was duly slotted by Sperm.

Dave Brunner entered the fold at this point in place of the work horse that is Rob Jones. The half continued very much as it had started, the Belsize backs showing great energy to attack us from all angles, we held firm again until about 15 minutes from the end, when our opponents drove a maul from a 5m lineout, our pack cunningly decided to not enter the maul to try and force a penalty, but bizarrely the ref was not familiar with the 'no maul formed' rule and awarded the try out wide. Another great conversion from their kicker saw the scores at 23-19. With the momentum in their favour, Belsize clearly smelt blood and the remainder of the game consisted purely of large waves of direct Belsize attack being met by 15 men in Blue who out right refused to lie down. The game, although played in great spirit by both sides, was marred somewhat when Council, in his last game before travelling Australia, was sent off for talking back to the ref (a lot). The Blues, even though down to 14, held firm for the last 6 minutes (special mention to Max Oliver for coming on for the last 5 mins as we introduce him slowly back from injury) and after Spermy's dodgy kick from the final play went out, there was pure joy and relief (and some slightly questionable hugging) from the entire Blue squad.

Another fantastic performance by the Extra A sees them keep their place at 2nd in the table, now 4 points off of Saturday's defeated opponents. Dick of the day was going to be a hard one.. right up until Council got sent off for excessive use of his mouth; well done d**k head. Even though he was stupid we do wish him all the best in for his Aussie adventure; try not to get arrested. Man of the match was clearly a tough one, with massive performances going in from every single one of our 20 man squad, but was eventually awarded to Sperm for being hands down the best player on the pitch, and potentially in the country.