South West One

South West One
Clifton 17 v Bracknell 15
By Henry La

Match photos at http://www.solidphotos.com/main.php?g2_itemId=16724

This two point victory by league leaders Clifton appeared to be an injustice to a Bracknell team who threw away the memories of their poor performance against Old Pats two weeks ago and turned the form book on its head.

Teams have ‘dirty wins’ but this game plunged the term to new depths because on 73 minutes Bracknell were comfortably holding the league leaders and winning by 15-3. Then, referee Mr Adam Friend sin binned the Bracknell skipper Ben Nowak to join hooker Joe Shelton following his yellow card on 68 minutes. But for the 13 brave Bracknell defenders left on the pitch it was a challenge too far as Clifton scored the winning points and the referee blew the final whistle.

Much is expected of referees and they will make mistakes but they should exhibit consistency. Referee Mr Adam Friend appeared to do this with playing decisions but he seriously failed to be balanced when awarding yellow cards.

If he considered Bracknell deserved to receive them then that is his decision but he then failed to treat Clifton the same when they were guilty of committing similar offences. On the run of play it would have taken a reversal of seismic proportions for the home team to claw back the two tries necessary to save the match if, 15 players had remained on the pitch.

Greg Anstead replaced absent Coach Chris Sheasby he felt, “Why we lost the game wasn’t due to a lack of effort but was down to the technical interpretation between us and the referee. This is a game where we looked like a different side to previous matches this season. The guys actually wanted to play and they played for each other putting in 110% effort for 80 minutes.”

With his usual calmness he said, “I can’t fault the effort of the guys, everyone is devastated but they discovered today that inside themselves, they know that they are better players than they’ve been given credit for. Some people thought we would come here and bottle it, even lose the game by 40 points or so.”

He continued, “They (Clifton), thought they could play the running game against us. I didn’t see any 40 metre breaks from them, I saw a guy go 5 yards to score the try. This was down to our defence and attitude. Look, to demonstrate just how good we were, after 60 minutes we lost Kenny (Barry) who is one of our biggest and best players plus, we had 5 guys in the team who played in the 2nd team last week yet, Clifton only just scraped the victory. It demonstrates that our players do believe in themselves and support each other. If people don’t like the way we do it well, we don’t care.”

Asked what motivated the team today, Anstead commented, “They just wanted to play. They were up for it and it was left to them how they were going to it. They were the catalyst of their good start and held it for 79 minutes despite technical differences between us and the referee.
Regarding the last minute fumble that gave Clifton the win, he said, “It was just one of those things; it happen in rugby and Clifton got lucky today. In that last second there were a number of outcomes that could have occurred and finishing the game with us winning but, they didn’t. Also, we were not helped playing the last 10 minutes playing with only 13 men.”

Skipper Ben Nowak’s view was similar, “I was really proud of the effort the boys put in, they were fantastic. Remember, they had to come down here to play a team who are the top point’s scores in the league this season and for 70 minutes we held them to 3 points.

The will was there and we totally deserved to win 15-3 win but dubious decisions by the referee who, sin binned three of our players yet every time we got into their 22, they (Clifton), gave away penalties yet, never got carded! We didn’t get what we deserved. We are looking forward to next week and on today’s performance there is no reason why we can’t go onto finish in second place as the first may be just too far away.”
Bracknell’ team changes were Neil Higgins at full back, Luke Carter as replacement scrum half and Peter Hill and Gareth Staples as forward replacements. Meanwhile Clifton included England International David Rees and the influential fly half John Barnes.

From the kick off Clifton tested Bracknell’s defence and within 3 minutes, they were found guilty of not releasing the ball. This was within the range of Clifton’s prolific points scorer Barnes who slotted the ball over and gave the home team a 3-0 lead.

It took ten minutes for Bracknell to get going; when they did it was by playing good open rugby. This forced Clifton to defend desperately and they succeeded especially for one period of 5 minutes when Bracknell were camped in the home teams 22 but finally slow recycling and handling errors stop them scoring.

Higgins demonstrated he has the talent to play in the full back position with his counter attacks continually proved to be dangerous. Bracknell deserved to go ahead on 21 minutes when Nowak scored after Jervis Manupenu stood strong when tackled, he flicking the ball out to Nowak who scored. His conversion missed but Bracknell led by 5-3.

On 33 minutes, Barnes missed a penalty chance from 40 metres. But Nowak was on target two minutes later when he had a pushed Bracknell out to a well deserved 8-3 lead.

The cold gusty wind affected the throwing of both teams at line outs so turnover’s occurred but solid Bracknell defence stopped any major incursions by Clifton when they won the ball. Bracknell though did progress especially from runs by Kai Blankley and Nico Maybury who went deep into Clifton territory. On the stroke of half time, Bracknell’s Jason Borcherds received the first of Mr Friend’s yellow cards awards for what looks an innocuous offence as he tried to retain the ball after being tackled.

This meant that Bracknell started the second half leading by 8-3 but with only 14 players on the field giving Clifton the chance to set up some early pressure but slowly the Bracknell players determination drove the home team back.

On 67 minutes Kenny Barry sustained a dislocated finger and was replaced by Peter Hill who maintained Barry’s physical presence with determined drives into Clifton’s often shaky defence. Finally, Bracknell’s greater focus and application paid off when Manupenu, who had an efficient but subdued afternoon, produced two brilliant dummies to wrong foot the home defence and score next to the post. Nowak converted and with 13 minutes left Bracknell had, what should have been, an unassailable 15-3 lead.

Unfortunately this didn’t take into account Mr Friend’s bizarre rule interpretations when he sent hooker Joe Shelton to the sin bin for what appears to have been for just the threat of using his foot to clear the ball

Even with Bracknell twice down to 14 players Clifton were still not able to break down the courageous visitors but things got tough for the visitors on 72 minutes when Mr Friend sin binned Nowak for obstruction. There is no doubt that he was right in awarding a penalty but showing a yellow card demonstrated his inconsistency as he failed to do the same to Clifton when they repeatedly infringed!

The pressure of Bracknell being down to 13 players finally gave the chance for Rees to score for Clifton in the corner. Barnes converted and the score was now 15-10 to Bracknell with just 7 minutes to play.

Valiant defending by the visitors kept home team at bay but pressure told in the end when at the final scrum of the game located in front of the posts, Clifton lost the ball when Bracknell’s managed to steal it. Blankley passed the ball back to Manupenu to clear but, in the heat of the moment, the ball went loose and a Clifton’ Reid dived on it to tie the match.

Barnes converted and Clifton scraped home 17-10. The home players and supporters erupted in celebration but some reflected on the good fortune their team had enjoyed. Mr Friend beat a hasty retreat and the Bracknell players left the pitch dignified but disappointed.

A positive is that they may now have found their form and the players are looking forward to picking up their great performance when they meet Redingensians next Saturday at Lily Hill with a 2:15pm kickoff.

Results elsewhere have turned the league upside down with Redingensians losing at home to Bournemouth. These two teams are now tied in second place and Coney Hill’s defeat at home has dropped down the table but Old Patesians and Weston Super Mare won to join Bracknell on 10 points.

*** Courtesy of Bracknell Times