Canterbury Shield - Division 3

Canterbury Shield - Division 3
Bracknell 2nds 46 v Maidenhead 2nds 10
By Henry La

Despite his team thrashing the useful Maidenhead team Manager Greg Anstead felt” Disappointed with our performance. Our first half defence was passive and we let them into the game.”

He explained, “We are a lot fitter than most teams in this league so we need to put pressure on teams from the kickoff. We can last 80 minutes and should be going strong as their energy fades giving us the chance to score plenty of tries. Maidenhead are a decent side who have been around for a while including last season when they played us in the Berkshire Cup so this result was a strong indicator of our strength.”

Looking at the longer term prospects for Bracknell, Anstead feels that young players such as Luke Carter and Mike Morris demonstrate the success of the DHL Academy system he said, “These young players are getting a decent standard of rugby with experienced first team players such as Dave Budge, Kai Blankley and Neil Higgins. They in turn benefit from playing at as decent standard outside of the 1st team.”

Bracknell are in second place to Redingensians 2nds, it is important to maintain their recent winning run to keep in touch with the leaders ahead of the 6th December encounter between them. Unfortunately for Anstead and his team, the game got off to a poor start when, after 4 minutes, a run through mid field saw Maidenhead score in the corner. Their conversion attempt was missed but Bracknell were clearly stunned and when ten minutes later Maidenhead had a simple penalty chance to go further ahead, if they had taken this the home team’s confidence would have be seriously challenged. Fortunately the penalty kick went wide and Bracknell were off the hook then rubbing salt into the Maidenhead wound when two minutes later, 18 year old fly half Matt Morris scored with his penalty attempt, narrowing the score to 3-5 and Anstead’s team had started to show something of their potential.

The pressure being exerted on Maidenhead started to drain their early confidence causing the visitors to make mistakes. On 25 minutes, a missed tackle on young centre Will Hopkins, allowed him to swiftly move the ball out to Dave Budge. His off load found Kai Blankley clear to score the first Bracknell try. Morris converted pushing Bracknell into a 10-5 lead.

It was now one way traffic as the home players increased the tempo of their play but not all chances were taken which, is something that Manager Anstead will have to work on in training because the scored points average will be a factor at the end of the season.
The introduction of centre Neil Higgins to full back gave Bracknell another attacking option and as the game wore on, Maidenhead were struggling against a formidable running unit of backs and forwards who punched holes into the visitors defence. One area that both teams had problems with was at the line outs but as the game wore on Bracknell changed their options to take advantage of slack Maidenhead marking.

Morris continued his influential role converting his own try on 35 minutes after leading a counter attack deep into the visitor’s half. This sent Bracknell into a comfortable 17-5 lead at half time.

After the break the Bracknell onslaught picked up even more pace and within four minutes another break by Morris was stopped just short of the line but he was supported by prop Gareth Staples who collected the ball and dived over to score the home teams 3rd try. Morris converted and the score edged further out to 24-5.

With everyone playing their part, wave after wave of the green shirted home team flowed down the Lily Hill pitch. The ever active Blankley scored his second and third tries of the day while a Maidenhead player was spending time in the sin bin. Morris converted one of them but missed with the other leaving the score after 56 minutes at 36-5.

Budge then scored four minutes later following one of his trademark jinking runs through the visiting defence; this was followed soon after with Ryan Dee try who powered his way past four defenders to score. Morris failed to convert either try but his personal contribution was 16 points with his overall performance being a credit to the Bracknell Academy scheme.

Leading 46-5 Bracknell finally relaxed paying the penalty when just before the final whistle the brave but definitely outgunned visitors were able to score in the corner and end the match 46-10. The performance so far this season has proved that the reintroduction of a competitive second team three years ago was necessary to allow the ongoing development of the younger players.

Next week Bracknell 2nds have a weekend off but they will need to ready for the game in two weeks as they travel to Redingensians for a ‘winner takes all’ contest.

*** Courtesy of Bracknell Times