Errors cost U17s dear in SW Divisional Shield

Maidenhead U17s 10 v Bristol U17s 30
Sunday 5th March 2006

Having been narrowly beaten by Swanage and Wareham in the South West Cup competition, Maids travelled to Wooton Bassett on Sunday to face Bristol in the Quarter Finals of the Divisional Shield.

Maids will look back on this match as on which they could have won, but in which they made too many basic errors and made things all too easy for competent but rather ponderous opponents. It was a case of "slip shod and Bristol fashioned."

The very heavy, undulating Wootton Bassett pitch, with its typical West Country "hell fire" corner, was not built for running rugby. A biting cold wind did little to help safe handling.

However, Maidenhead started well. Skipper James Henley took them into an early lead with a penalty. Bristol responded with a prolonged period of sustained pressure and were only kept at bay by some excellent and determined Maids’ defence. However, the pressure eventually told when Bristol came away with a penalty.

At this stage much of the pressure on Maidenhead was self inflicted. All too often Maids’ players took the ball into mauls, only to lose possession to a stronger Bristol team. When Maids did win good ball they contrived to make as many handling errors as in most of the earlier season. Fortunately, the Bristol attack was centred around a number of rehearsed set moves, which were too well signalled and too slowly executed to threaten a well organised Maidenhead defence.

However, in the end it was a defensive error by Maids, failing to deal with a speculative kick ahead, that gifted Bristol a converted try. Bristol added a further try to take the score to 3-15 at half time.

Maids started the second half badly. Another turn-over from a maul on the Bristol 22 gave Bristol the chance to run in a long range try under the posts. It was duly converted.

Finally, Maids then started to show what might have been. By putting the ball to ground and rucking it, the forwards started to produce good possession, to supplement the steady stream from the scrums and lines out, where Liam Lynch again dominated. However simple errors, missed overlaps and forward passes, all too often wasted hard earned ball. The opportunity to put the ball behind the Bristol defence down the hill into "hellfire corner" was ignored. When Maids did manage to move the ball down the line, James Kudumaki ran in an excellent try, which was superbly converted by Henley.

At 10-22 the Maidenhead supporters started to dream of a surprise win. But within a minute, the Maids forwards gave away a penalty on their own 22 and Bristol gratefully extended their lead to 15 points.

Maids now seemed to realise that victory was beyond them, whilst Bristol gained in confidence and their powerful scrum half came from the back of a ruck, beat the defending forwards for pace, and ran in the final try of the match.

The loss means that the match will be Maids’ final competitive match of the season, but they have earned the deserved respect of many opponents since September and can look forward to some challenging and enjoyable friendly games over the next two months.