Five-try Bracknell are Rutting great

Bracknell’s DHL Academy notched up a third successive five-try victory on the road with a steady demolition of Old Rutlishians in SW19. Head coach Martin Radford beamed: “Winning’s a habit, and it’s one we are really starting to build ahead of key league matches next month.”

Old Ruts showed great spirit and kept the game scoreless for 25 minutes of a forward duel which featured endless short carries, booming tackles, and infringements at key moments for the visitors.

Propless Ruts had called for uncontested scrums, and their pack was well suited to rugby-lite tactics. But they carried little real threat with a kicking game into the wind that was designed more to give them a breather than upset the scorer.

Bracknell finally broke the deadlock once they swapped the battering ram for the rapier ... in the form of full-back Ben Blosse. All it took was quick, clean ball on halfway, crisp inter-changing between half-backs David Gaynor and Connor Sawdon, and Blosse accelerating into the gap for a touchdown, the ease of which belied the blood-and-guts stalemate that had preceded it.

It was another simple training-ground move that brought up 10-0 on 32 minutes. Bracknell No 8, Jack Williams, broke laterally off a ruck as though he were strolling down to Tesco’s, but he did not waste the time Old Ruts so generously afforded him, popping a flat pass into the path of centre Dan Ryding who thundered through the channel like like a District Line service out of Wimbledon, straight to the posts and an easy conversion for Gaynor for a 12-0 lead at the break.

Bracknell failed to take their early chances after the break but kept Ruts penned back too deep for them to exploit the following wind. The home side may have sniffed a chance of victory when Jack Allchurch finished a break up the right for 12-5 on 57 minutes after Ryding had been turned over while trying to crash his way out of his own 22.

However, Bracknell responded by setting up camp on Ruts’ five-metre line for almost 10 minutes before the pressure eventually told and the powerful Ryding, bafflingly, at the sharp end of a rolling maul, went over in the left corner to kill the game on 65 minutes.

At 17-5 down, and five minutes left, there was no way back for Old Ruts. But you could argue, as their coach Colin Walsh did later, that they did not deserve what happened next. Bracknell , with victory assured, actually relaxed ... and ran in two more tries.

First, Blosse entered the line, as per the first-half template, and again sprinted through the gap for a try which he converted for 24-5. Then, as Old Ruts tried to run out the final minute by running the ball, outside-centre Josh Lane got his reward for 70-minutes of tooth-rattling tackling with an easy intercept and touchdown which Gaynor converted with the final action of the afternoon.

Coach Walsh was full of praise for Bracknell . “They tried to blitz us early on but adapted when that wasn’t working and looked really impressive when they started working the ball wide. The final score did flatter Bracknell . We wanted to keep it away from their big pack but never ran it enough and wasted too much good possession with aimless kicking.”

Despite losing their way at the start of both halves, Bracknell had plenty to spare to see off Old Ruts and Coach Radford would have absorbed more data from individual performances to help him decide what his ideal starting XV will be. Man-of-the-match Chris Griffiths and Williams did themselves no harm with aggressive back-row displays while Tim Ryan and James Spiller were as reliable as ever, and the heavy cavalry - Dan Gyles, Chris Preston and Karl Findlay - all did plenty of damage even without scrum warfare.

In the backs, Sawdon and Lane continue to impress while right-wing Dale Cooper and Blosse at full-back were outstanding at times.
By David Ryan

SCORERS: Blosse (try) 0-5, 25min; Ryding (try) 0-10, 32min; Gaynor (con) 0-12, 32min; Allchurch (try) 5-12, 57min; Ryding (try) 5-17, 65min; Blosse (try) 5-22, 67min; Blosse (con) 5-24, 67min; Lane (try) 5-29, 70min; Gaynor (con) 5-31, 70min.