London Irish Wild Geese 30 – Bracknell 9

It was the first time that Bracknell had played at the new fantastic rugby facilities at London Irish’s Hazelwood Centre, the last time these two side met in Sudbury was at Irish’s old ground.

Bracknell wearing black were forced to make five changes from the team that secured a point against Colchester last Saturday.

On a damp day in south west London and the strong wind blowing across the pitch the sides exchanged early penalties, before a simple Bracknell turnover led to the first London Irish try by centre Seb Rodwell. Conversion going wide.

Bracknell finally managing to get out of their own half, put together ten phases of play. They were rewarded with a penalty from Lewis Dennett. 8-6, with 30 minutes on the clock. The three points came at some cost to Bracknell, Lachlan Valetine forced to leave the field through injury.

Just before the half time break some swift hands from the London Irish back line allowed second row Micky Jones score Irish’s second try of the game. Conversion was missed. 13- 6 to Irish at half time.

It was Bracknell that opened the scoring in the second half with a Lewis Dennet penalty.

An Irish attack forced Bracknell to carry the ball over their own try line. The crowd were then treated to eight minutes of scrumaging and some seven scrums! The ball finally coming out of the scrum and going wide for replacement Pete Hodgkinson to score and convert his own try. 20-9 to Irish.

With the dim light being broken by the floodlights being turned on during the game the Irish attacks were taking their toll on Bracknell. Down to the bear core in the pack, Stuart Silvester obliged to pack down at second row, nevertheless the scrum held strong.

A quick penalty from London Irish and cross field kick allowed former Bracknell player George Owen to gather the ball and score Irish’s bonus point try. Conversion was kicked.

There was just enough time left for Irish to kick one more penalty, before the referee blew the full time whistle.

Full time: London Irish Wild Geese 30 – Bracknell 9 (Points: London Irish Wild Geese 5 – Bracknell 0)

Next Saturday Bracknell are at home to inform Chichester (KO 2.15pm) please come down and support the boys!!!!!!

Bracknell: 1:Rob Baragwanth 2:Joe Pickett 3:Jonny Mirza ( c ) 4:James Wright 5.Josh Kronman 6:Tom Deveraux 7:Jamie Rudkin 8:Lachlan Valentine 9:Lewis Dennet 10:Jack Conway 11:Ian Burch 12: Danz Faamatuainu 13:Chris Brember 14:Stu Mackay 15:Ben Yates Subs: Stuart Silvester, Liam Goodison Neil Higgins

Pete’s Predictions
With Bracknell’s game in week 18 being postponed for a week and the re-arranged match coinciding with the 6 Nations and the obligatory hangover given England’s win at Murrayfield, you, the reader are in for a treat – 2 week’s predictions in one! It doesn’t get much better than that……..

My week 18’s predictions were spot on for games played on the right day – 6 out of 6 including East Grinstead’s win against Tonbridge – get in there! What thwarted a full house was Bracknell’s “home” loss to Colchester. Played on the fantastic artificial 4G surface at Maidenhead it played right into the hands of the free running visitors. Let’s hope Bracknell don’t have to go there again soon

You will have to believe me when I say that I would have picked 6 or 7 results from week 19. The only hesitation in my mind would have been the result at Chichester but given their home win against Guernsey a few rounds ago and Wimbledon’s run of 7 losses in a row – let’s now call it 8 – I’d have gone for home advantage – so 7 out of 7 it is….or might have been had I been sober enough to write it.

Promotion candidates.
Nearly all the sides in the league with 2 words or more in their name are still in with a shout of top spot or the second place playoff – with Eton Manor being the exception. With 7 games left Westcombe Park in 4th and East Grinstead in 3rd have enviable run-in’s whilst Tonbridge Juddian’s in 2nd is less easy and London Irish Wild Geese (that’s a long scarf) in 1st are really up against it. It’s certainly all to play for.

Win of the week
Week 18 candidates are East Grinstead, Westcombe Park and Colchester and the award goes to……East Grinstead for beating the best side in the league
Week 19 goes to Chichester – the only side to beat a side placed above them in the league

Relegation worries.
In recent weeks Colchester and Chichester have done enough to stay in the league but not since week 9 have any of the 3 sides in the relegation zone managed to beat anyone other than each other. Even though Wimbledon have not won in 8 games and Bracknell have only won 1 game in the last 7 there is still a gap of 15 points and considerable points difference between any of the bottom 3 sides and safety. So, having only scored 18 points from 19 games I can’t see either Gravesend or Westcliff getting 15 points from the remaining 7 games – but stranger things have happened. I would be stretching it to say that it’s all to play for, but it is fair to say that it’s not done and dusted yet!

Next week’s fixtures
It’s a rather innocuous week as far as the league goes, with no obvious promotion or relegation battles; my only prediction concern is whether Bracknell can beat Chichester. Bracknell won narrowly at Chichester in November so logic says that they will win at home. Recent form however suggests that this may not be as straightforward as it seems; so here we go with my predictions for week 20 in league fixture list order
Home win - Home win – Home win – Away win – Away win - Home win - Home win

Go BRFC!