Second win on the bounce for the Bs

After a dreadful day of rain the sun put his hat on and helped us to welcome the Beaconsfield B team to our Calfridus pitch, helpfully “dressed” by the boys’ team mates in the A team. That is; the pitch was “dressed” (flags, post protectors) by the boys, not the Beaconsfield team!

After a perfectly observed minutes silence for remembrance day, Beaconsfield kicked off, and immediately put Bracknell under pressure. In fact for around the first 10 minutes it was difficult to recall Bracknell crossing the halfway line, and they were thankful for the solid scrum that Beaconsfield were not able to exert any more pressure than they actually did.

The visitors had some strong runners in the backs, and were clearly willing to use them but found the tackling in the outside channels particularly effective. Oakley in particular put in some outstanding defence, and was ably supported by Tim, who made a couple of try saving interventions of his own, as well as Fraser, Lewis and Ryan.

In fact the whole team, in a backs to the wall display defended superbly, and it was only really this which kept Bracknell in the game during the first quarter. Beaconsfield did manage one try with a well worked three-quarters play, and at 5-0 up were probably hoping that the floodgates would open, but instead they kept running into very stubborn defence, and a rock-solid scrum.

It was some 15 minutes before the ball actually left the pitch, and when it did it was from a Beaconsfield knock-on which enabled Bracknell to choose the line-out or a scrum. As Bracknell’s scrum had been so good thus far, they naturally chose the line-out (of which there had been none!). Cue much discussion amongst the forwards about the philosophies of scrum or line-out choice, before they were persuaded to continue, took the line-out and won it.

With a very full squad in display Bracknell were able to refresh their ranks at regular intervals, and gradually the half regained some equilibrium, and in a similar way to the previous week, the boys started finding holes and half-gaps within the Beaconsfield defence. With Josh, Joe, Kai and Toby all finding the gaps, the Beaconsfield scrambling defence had to be right on top to stop a full on breakthrough.

Eventually it came, when a Bracknell penalty was taken quickly and the ball rushed to Toby, who scooted around the re-setting Beaconsfield defence to cross again in the corner. 5-5 at half time, and probably Beaconsfield feeling that they should have been ahead.

So into the second half, and the forwards set off with adding some very effective rucking to their dominant scrum, and as the Beaconsfield pack gradually tired through the second period, the Bracknell packs ability to win both their own, and the oppositions ball at the breakdowns increased. This was apparent right from the outset, with good front foot ball that enabled the backs, now themselves firmly on the front foot, to release Toby into space, and to pick up his, and the teams second try shortly after resumption of hostilities, and with Joe adding the extras Bracknell were ahead for the first time at 12-5.

Beaconsfield were not finished however and fought back to 12-10 with a strong try of their own. Thereafter, Bracknells work at the breakdown and strong running lines from the backs, really remained the story of the rest of the game. Theo, who had been relatively quiet in the first half, found far more ball in his hands and started to threaten the defence, and was rewarded with one of his trademark tries from distance, after some great driving work and support play from the forwards. Toby added his third, and the team’s fourth after a great run from Tim who remained a threat to the visitors with his running from deep throughout the game, and with one more conversion, the final score was 24-10, which with three tries to one in the second period a very fair reflection on the balance of play. During the second period, Zach was also unlucky not to break the line on a couple of occasion with his strong direct runs.

In the pack, there were good interventions with the ball from Ryan, Seth, Max and Frazer during the second period whilst Ed and Lewis worked particularly hard wherever the ball ended up.

All the tries to the runners in the backs, but again like last week , they should be very thankful of the platform laid for them by the hard working forwards, whose dominant scrum and superb breakdown work, enable such fine front foot ball. It should be noted that Beaconsfield’s defence was strong throughout, but with the constant attack from the ball carrying forwards and the clever running of the backs, there were times when the defence just ran out of numbers.