|
U14s narrowly lose to Newbury Maidenhead U14s 7 v Newbury
U14s 15 |
|||
|
Maidenhead broke for Christmas on the back of two heavy defeats. Coach Steve Bough’s New Year message was that the team had to show greater concentration and commitment if they were to recover something from the season. Against a big, well drilled Newbury side Maidenhead found some of their old form and potential to go down only narrowly. If they didn’t provide an alpha rated effort, at least they gave a beta plus performance. Playing with the wind behind them in the first half, Maidenhead got off to a bad start, when, within 2 minutes, Newbury snatched an unconverted try, breaking through from a passage of broken play. The much heavier Newbury pack started to exert early pressure, but Richard Higgs, leading by example, rallied the Maids’ pack and they started to hold their own in the set pieces. Prop, Ben Willis had an excellent game throughout and No 8, Ed Clark made a serious of determined breaks. The improved performance was rewarded after 25 minutes, when Maids managed to break out of defence and Christophe Bart outpaced the Newbury cover to score a try, which was converted by Billy Evans. The second half started just like the first, with lapses in concentration in the Maids’ defence allowing Newbury in for another unconverted try. 10 minutes later, following the charge down of an attempted clearance kick, Newbury forced their way over for a third try, which, after some debate, was deemed not to have been converted. Maids got their act together again and more than held their own for most of the half. All too often, however, good individual breaks were not adequately supported and too much 50:50 ball was won by a more determined Newbury pack. The Maidenhead outsides defended well and had the firepower to score again, but it was not to be and Maids ended the game defending their own line. This was a very much better performance by Maidenhead and shows that there is much to be built upon over the rest of the season.
|