Canterbury Shield - Division 3

This was another terrific away victory for Greg Anstead’s crusading 2nd team who despite losing key players to injury managed to pull off a great win against a team who were able to field a number of 1st team players.

Anstead said, “I didn’t doubt we would win but we were rusty after a 6 week break. Still, we kept plugging away despite being up against a much larger team but too often we played into their hands by slowing down our game. When we did increase the pace, we scored.”

Bracknell were first to score when, leading by example, Captain for the day Luke Carter went over for the first try. Matt Morris missed the conversion but Bracknell led 0-5. Portsmouth responded with a try after a Bracknell mix up and they led 7-5 at half time.

In the second half Bracknell picked up the pace with Morris putting through Ollie Jordan to score under the posts. Portsmouth replied with a penalty to narrow the score to 10-12.

Alan Leishman, Bracknell’s answer to Jonah Lomu, was given the Man of the Match award. He demonstrated his experience by powering over from a quickly taken ‘tap and go’. Morris converted and Bracknell increased their lead to 10-19. Tom Agar then made the most of his low centre of gravity by cutting 30 meters through the Portsmouth defence, he off loaded to Gideon Kamya finished off the move with a 15 meter run to the line.

Bracknell consolidated their 2nd place and this week they have a home match against Sutton & Epsom with a 2:00pm kick off.