B's battle to hard win at Staines

The game started off in a little disarray as one of the many lofty trees around the ground had blown over, taking a light pylon with it.

So with the England Ladies team preparing for their Six nations on the one un-affected pitch, our game was played on the exposed outside pitch from the 15m line to the touchline of the adjacent football pitch. This made the positioning of the posts rather odd, but otherwise the pitch was very playable, although the gusting wind made kicking, passing and throwing a little challenging.

Adam, Callum, Jonty and Alex MH deserve enormous credit for putting themselves forward to play on the Staines team in order that the game could go ahead, and all put in a very good effort and justifiably made life more difficult for their Bracknell team-mates.

In the blustery conditions, the Bracknell three-quarters seemed not to be affected in the slightest as the handling was excellent and from the start, the likes of Max, Theo and Tim threatened to break the Staines line. Staines however, prided themselves on their defence and certainly tackled like tigers throughout the game, outshining Bracknell as a team, in this area for the whole match.

The breakthrough came though when Staines kicked out of defence, Tim hovered up the ball, scooted past several disorganised defenders before drawing their last line of defence and sending Tom flying over in the corner.

Staines stormed back into the game with their big ball carriers ably supported by Adam, Jonty and Callum who helped the home forwards dominate many of the breakdowns. Too many for Bracknells liking. A big carry,two lost breakdowns, and some missed tackles drew the scores level at 5-5.

Not dis-similar to the first try, Bracknell regained the lead, when third phase ball was moved wide to Max who darted through a gap, and again drew the defence before releasing Tom for his second.
The score became 15-5 just before half-time as a multi-pass move from within their own 22m, found Tom just inside the oppo half, and with a little more work to do this time, he beat a couple of tackles before scoring under the posts.

The second half would be challenging as the wind was more beneficial to Staines, and it didn’t take long before they wer back in the game when their No8 picked up from the back of a scrum and bashed his way over the line making it 17-12 to Bracknell.

From this point, facing a resurgent Staines, Bracknell started to play their best rugby, with the forwards starting to regain dominance by more commitment at the breakdown, and the backs making some good yardage out wide. Max, Josh and Billy in particular started giving the team some good go forward, and for much of the second half the game was played in the Staines half. Theo went close to scoring wide on the right, but was denied by a “committee” of touch-judges, adjudging him to have stepped out on the way.

The fourth try came for Tom, when an attacking scrum went wrong, the ball shot out and Sam shipped in straight to Tom, who shot through a gap on the blindside, scoring under the posts.

Just time for the last play of the game, and Staines to pull back a consolation try when their big carrier forced his way over in the corner – Final score was a very hard fought 22-17.