Stortford 4s winning streak ends

Match Report 27th October 2012.
Hackney 2's 36 – 8 Bishops Stortford 4s.

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I have rewritten some of this match report following complaints from Hackney and reassurances that we did play their 2s. The error was my fault, as when looking at their website, I assumed that the picture of their 1st team was this seasons as their website is generally of a very high quality, and otherwise up to date, including the weekends games changing.
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I did wonder what would happen after the superb game against OAs last week. Selection was somewhat harder this week. 4 teams playing at home certainly seems to produce considerably more available players than 4 teams playing away. The last 48 hours were spent with the 3s, 4s and 5s all varying between about 12 and 16 players with withdraws and late arrivals.

Anyhow Saturday morning arrived with a very decent 4s team and the addition of Dave Walker 'offering' his hungover services at the last second – thanks for coming Dave, and Sam making his audition for the 3s.

London traffic took far longer than we all expected meaning about a 10 minute warm up before kick off, combined with extremely strong running by Hackney back row and backs as well as a lack of defending around the fringes by us we very embarrassingly went down 4 tries in 20 minutes, not helped by a nasty injury to Graham Pearman after about 90 seconds – hopefully a sprained ankle but either way not a happy chappy until he ended up high on pain killers.

We had learnt our lesson by 20 minutes, fanning out and defending aggressively around the fringes of the rucks and the second 20 minutes consisted of a lot of defence, occasional forays into their half through some increasingly aggressive running and a few kicks more or less the length of their very short pitch by our newly returned fly half, John Skelton. We then gradually began to play to our strengths and started to essentially dominate the scrum, we competed well at the line out – in particular Ryan jumping against their main receiver. Our rolling mauls worked and we started to gain parity at the ruck. Hackney unfortunately still had a lot of running in them, but some very dedicated tackling limited them to one more try in the second quarter, to our successful penalty – Mr Skelton bouncing the ball off the cross bar from about 15 meters – a trick shot I asked him to a relieved smile in return. Half time (I think) was 28 – 3 to Hackney.

I did my best to inspire (still working on it!) with a team talk at half time and by now we realised we could compete with this team, we went into the second half with our heads high and more to the point our minds focussed. To be honest the match is a bit of a blur but this half was essentially even with our dominance now established at scrum, rucking where the referee was pinging them for increasingly frequent diving over the ball. Lineouts went well into our typically effective rolling maul and the backs started some effective running lines making good territory, but neither side was able to break the other this time.

They scored one try – a tap from a 10 metre penalty with their prop running at me. I stopped him, ably aided by Dave Walker behind me to the left but unfortunately as there was no one behind me to our right he rolled this way, which should not have been allowed to happen, and scored a try On the other hand we scored a much better try! A lineout led to a rolling maul – gaining 10 metres. This rolled off into a ruck which was again taken up 5 meters at which point they infringed giving us advantage. I saw a gap – stumbled / shot (in my mind) through it and was subtly alerted to the marauding Liam Grimes running an excellent line across me. Being the excellent judge of running rugby I am (nothing to do with being knackered!) I popped the ball to him to watch him burst across their line for a try, very well deserved by Stortford.

Final score was 36 – 8 with us definitely getting the upper hand, if the second half was the first half, I would have fancied us to take the game and I applaud all the players for their resolve after our torrid start.

Man of the match was Ryan Roberts for his stiff upper lip, refusal to be bowed, general chirpyness, energy round the park, jumping in the line and great effort, although again several players that all excelled in the last 60 minutes Frosty and Jerry again, and some superb tackling by Andy Southgate. Dick of the Day, unfortunately, to Mr Skelton who despite having a good all round game, his first in a few years, kicked the ball dead out the end of the pitch TWICE, from his own 22! Not even internationals manage that feat often!

Moral of the story for today, don't worry about who we are playing, play OUR game well, and then we can match anyone. We play Hackney again at our on Jan 26th. I want as many of you as possible present because we are going to absolutely stuff them at ours.

Chris