Warriors drive back Crusaders
Simon Ballard, 7 March 2010 17:43
With a significant wind advantage Crusaders
started on the back foot from our perfectly retained kick-off
as a sprinting Jimmy Mayhew took the first of several cracking
catches. After a Bobby penalty (but good throw-in interference)
their answering clearance was run vigorously back at them by
Dangerous Donny The Avenger. This vim and vigour backfired as a
consequent penalty allowed the visitor’s Loone to take three
points. Another flying take by Jimmy and we continued the
pressure with Melon and the fish puns driving to take
possession, territory and build attacking opportunities for
Kuri and the gang who looked itching to run it at them. On a
sticky pitch both teams continued this battle for superiority
in the first quarter but we seemed to win more clean ball, Jon
Crowther driving well. Martin hit the post from a penalty and
we were straight back at them with a good run from Kuri but
they cleared well with the wind towards our 22. We won a
penalty but the kick, like all of them, remained suspended in
the wind. After several other kicking exchanges the eagle eyed
Ref spotted Lewis handling on the ground and we were pinged. No
matter, moments later Tom finally stole possession, ran through
shallow defence and scored a Martin-converted try. The
Crusaders resisted further pressure, Coddy playing a blinder,
even forcing us back over our own line but we held until Lewis
was binned and given a lecture on rucking. Shane joined in and
was sent to the Technical Area that Liam swears isn’t necessary
but had tenderly marked out, NOT. Shortly afterwards they put
on a powerful rolling maul to launch Byrne over to score an
unconverted try on the blind side against 14 men. Cock. The end
of the half saw “I got it” Kuri take a low clearance kick to
the chest at speed to launch a great attack which was killed by
the whistle.
We resumed after the break in defiant mood -
remembering the poor second half at the last meeting - and
Coddy made a 20 metre charge to offload for Kieran to score
within minutes. Crusaders counter-attacked with Elliott and
Hadley making some particularly promising runs, 2 or 3 more
good phases forced us to defend hard with some great play by
Donny. Indeed it was Donny, keen to equal Kieran‘s score, who
picked up a spill near our 22 and sprinted 50 metres to offload
to Jimmy whose score was held up. Our forwards seemed to
improve as the game progressed and tackled and drove repeatedly
to establish platforms for our runners to exploit. Our
normally reliable line-out was bedevilled by the swirling wind
but it did however result in a binning for their No 1 for
pulling down a subsequent rolling maul. From the following
ruck the clear out sailed over John Y to land with Olly who set
up Kieran to score his second. OG and Andy continued to support
Melon’s strong efforts and the newly fielded Shane who stole
well from his first maul. In the end it came down to which team
could take and use possession and the balance fell to the
Warriors as, following prolonged central play and continued
aggression, Kuri blasted through their 22 to score and seal a
gutsy 24 - 8 home victory.
Final score: Woodbridge
Warriors 24; Crusaders 8
Woodbridge Warriors: 1 Karl Harris, 2 Tom
Herring, 3 Simon Codd, 4 Dan Knights, 5 Bobby Armour (Capt), 6
Ollie Gray, 7 Jimmy Mayhew, 8 John Crowther, 9 Tristan Steward,
10 John Yorke, 11 Kieran Richardson, 12 Kuri, 13 Lewis Ballard,
14 Donovan Steward, 15 Martin Dumbill. Replacements; 16 Andy
Brown, 17 Shane Manning.
Crusaders: 1 Ed Wood , 2 Scott Veness, 3 Paul
Sharp, 4 Rupert Greest, 5 Tom Fiddy, 6 Martin Adcock (Capt), 7
Darren Maeer, 8 Ash Smith, 9 Robert Loone, 10 Jordan Long, 11
Theo Elliott, 12 Tom Hadley, 13 Ben Barker, 14 Stu Byrne, 15
Tom Sandland. Replacements: 16 Ben Egan, 17 Tom Dack, 18 Steve
Dack.
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