OLD OTLIENSIANS 2ndXV 43 pts vs
Thornensians 19 pts
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In the away fixture before last November,
‘Ensians suffered a heavy defeat at Thorne and they were keen to make
amends in near perfect conditions. With the home front row of Ben Newall,
Richard Paley and Dave Beardsley having the nudge in the scrums, half
backs Richard Crossley and Dominic Oddy wasted no time in getting their
backs moving. Sound defence snuffed out several moves, but good running
from centres Steve Grundy and Sam Castledine took play into the Thorne 22.
Strong drives by locks Chris Howells and Mark Copping took the ball to the
line before flanker Andy Bower forced his way over on 12 minutes for an
unconverted try.
The visitors then showed that they were no pushover and their powerful
backs mounted numerous attacks to test the back three of Tom Broadbent,
Sean Flesher and Anthony Ball. It was on 23 minutes that Oddy got the ball
away to give centre Grundy room to nip round two defenders to score near
the posts. The conversion by Ben Newall took ‘Ensians lead to 12 – 0. The
hosts continued to attack through their backs and three minutes later
winger Tom Broadbent rounded off an excellent move by diving over in the
corner to lift the score to 17 - 0 after the ball went through seven pairs
of hands.
Thornensians were far from finished and showed now dangerous their backs
were by scoring half way out after good interplay between forwards and
backs. The conversion took the score to 17 – 7 to the home side as the
break approached and showed that the game was far from over.
In the second half, Ben Richards came on at scrum half allowing Crossley
to move to flanker and experienced lock Richard Smith replaced Copping.
The home side were soon on the attack again and strong drives by Newall,
Smith and Crossley took play into the visitors’ 22. Oddy and Grundy made
ground before lock Howells switched the angle of attack and blasted his
way through under the post from 10 yards. With their tails up, ‘Ensians
were now moving the ball wide at every opportunity and a sweeping move by
the backs put winger Anthony Ball over wide out. A fine conversion by
Newall stretched the lead to 31 – 7 on 48 minutes.
At this stage a Thorne prop had to go off through injury and scrums became
uncontested and this proved to be a turning point in the game. Instead of
struggling for ball from the scrums, Thorne now had a stream of quick
quality possession and their under-used backs were able to show their
considerable skills. Two powerful Samoans began finding huge gaps down the
middle and through good backing up and sound handling, they produced two
well-worked tries on 55 and 60 minutes. With conversions, the score was
now a far- from-comfortable 31 – 19 to the home side.
Lock Andy Wood replaced Howells and ‘Ensians buckled down to stemming the
dangerous Thornensians backs with Richard Crossley putting in some good
defensive work in mid-field. Although ‘Ensians were obtaining a fair share
of possession in the lineout through Alan Garnett and Dominic Birkin,
their passing became nervous and inaccurate and several promising moves
failed.
A fine last-ditch tackle by Crossley near the line stopped a certain try
and this seemed to lift the confidence of the home side as well as
deflating the opposition. ‘Ensians then went onto the attack and lock Andy
Wood was up in support to make an angled run from fifteen yards to go in
under the posts. In the closing minute, centre Steve Grundy finished off a
good back move to score his second try half way out. There was one
conversion by Ben Newall to make the final score 43- 19 to the hosts.
This was a fast and entertaining game where the home side were cruising
along well in control in the pack and in the backs until scrums became
uncontested. After this, they lost their way for a while in the second
half, but their spirited come-back in the final quarter produced a
comfortable victory.
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