Sat 27 Jan 2024
Pearcecroft, Saturday 27 Jan 2024
On a day destined for running rugby, Old Sils ended up running away with the match in the last quarter, though deserving the win, they were helped by Stratford errors.
From the kick-off, Stratford had five or six promising phases of play ending with a penalty attempt from just outside the 10 m line, sadly this was missed. Over the next 10 minutes both teams showed some strong defence and appeared relatively evenly matched.
Sils scored the first try of the game, following a Stratford dropout on the goal-line, Sils worked the ball across the field and ended up breaking through and scoring 20m right of the post.
The game continued being played mainly between both teams 22 but a knock on from Sils just inside their half led to a scrum that Stratford almost capitalised on, a knock-on at the try line, in a long passage of play that could have ended with the scoreboard looking quite different. Another very good scoring chance was denied when the referee pulled Stratford back for a forward pass around the halfway line. Sils knocked over a second penalty in the next few incursions into Stratford’s half, 0-13.
Try as they might, Stratford couldn’t slow down the Sils ruck ball and good running lines made indents in the Stratford defence, scoring a second in the left-hand corner about 25 minutes in. Following this there were a few sloppy mistakes from each team in potentially promising positions but neither team crossed the line until the last play of the half, when Sils managed to touchdown in the far-left corner, the conversion was successful, and the half time score was 0-20.
When the game got back under way, Stratford appeared reenergised and managed to score down the left side, following through on the DoR Rich Peperell’s direction to spread the ball wide, when possible, Bron Koziel managed to run round the outside of the Sils 10 and pass inside to Charlie Powell to open the Stratford account, Dan Whitby’s conversion made it 7-20. This encouraged the Stratford faithful, hoping it would be the start of the comeback, but that was not to be the case, as Sils scored quickly after with a killer blow making the score 7–27.
Stratford went down to 14 men when Full back Jo Cook saw yellow for an, allegedly deliberate, trip after ruck ball was disrupted and Sils found themselves with a 2-on-1 at the Stratford 22. Sils scored two more in this period, one instantly following the card and the second a cut back against the grain found space between the Stratford 10 and forwards, the result of a messy line-out, 7-41.
Stratford got a try back straight away, after continued competition for the restart finally paid off, and Charlie Powell was able to put Sam James in under the posts, 12-41. Well behind, but not giving in, Stratford kept testing the Sils defence when called upon, Jo Cook bravely put his body on the line in a defensive tackle which saved a sure try, unfortunately it left him being withdrawn.
A cross field kick from a defensive position, from then 10 Nath Geekie, saw Charlie gather the ball on the opposite flank and make progress into Sils half. Three or four more phases of sustained pressure allowed Charlie to get his second of the game, 19-41 after the conversion.
Sils got the final try of the game managing to score in the corner once again, 19-48. A tiring day's work for Stratford who were perhaps not helped by the second postponement of their league game with Ludlow the previous weekend. They kept at it and the prospect of a derby with Shipston on Stour next week will hopefully get them firing again.
The 2nd XV beat Coventry Welsh 56 -19 with KES School gap year assistant teacher Tom Houlahan scoring a hat-trick. Next week the 1st XV head down the road to Shipston, where local bragging rights are at stake, while the 2nd XV travel to Coventry to play Trinity Guild.
Please enter your page detail here. This can be HTML or text. To edit click the first menu icon on the small HTML menu that appears when you click on this text. Please use the elements on the right if you wish to construct a richer page content with headers, images and layout grids.
