Abbey ousted in hard fought win

Most teams, when they see the size of the forwards walking onto the pitch wearing the green, black and gold of Bracknell quake in their boots, not Abbey. For once, our pack had a fight on its hands, and they more than equal to the task.

Abbey’s man of the match, loose head Jack Belcher, had a torrid time in the scrums against James Walford and James Harris (two of the finest exponents of the dark arts of tight head play that you will ever see at this level), whilst their talisman of so many years, Chunya Munga, was well marshalled by the ever willing back row of Ben Torr, Matt van Heerde and Kane O’Leary.

The James’ compatriots in the front row union (Fergus Hill, Ben Clark, Harry Grange and George Harris) have all formed a fantastic partnership this season and stood firm in the set piece and carried well in loose play. The second row of Alexander Robinson (voted as man of the match by Abbey), Kyle Bruwer and Tom Day gave us much needed height in the line out and a cutting edge in the attacks laid on by the pack.

In the backs, Jamie Brown did well in the face of an Abbey defence that teetered on the brink of offside for much of the game giving Matthew Dalrymple the chance to distribute the ball, by boot and by hand, from outside half.

Our centre partnership of Sam Clough and Max Rickard struggled to break through the middle of the Abbey defences, such was the commitment shown at the tackle and the ensuring breakdowns, and it was only when we stretched their defences that we created try scoring opportunities around the outside (for Tom Hall and Sam Faulkner). James Williams did not the opportunities to really stretch his legs in space in attack, but saved a certain try towards the end of the second half overturning a 10m gap on his opposite number to haul him down just short of the Bracknell line. Joshua Zeller, playing out of position at full back, was solid in defence and gave an extra dimension in attack when he joined the line.

The sign of a good team is one that can accept that things will not go right all the time and be able to take stock of a situation and work out a plan of attack that will result in victory. Today’s win took patience in attack, working the ball through the phases to create the necessary “holes” to penetrate, and determination and organisation in defence.

No greater complement can be paid to a team than the opposition captain saying to us after the game that we play a brand of rugby that his team should aspire too.

In the last five matches – we have scored 225 points and conceded only 19 whilst in the league itself, unless Abbey do something fairly exceptional against ‘Ensians in a few weeks, we have scored the most points (217) and have the best points difference (+154). Next season, we will be looking to improve upon third place!

Tries: Tom Hall, Alexander Robinson (2), Sam Faulkner and Fergus Hill
Conversions: Matthew Dalrymple (4)