|
U13s' tough trip to Newbury Newbury U13s 27 v Maidenhead
U13s 7 |
|||
 |
|||
|
Maidenhead under 13s started their league campaign with a tough away fixture against title favourites Newbury. The first half was always going to be tough, playing against a very strong wind and a large well drilled Newbury pack. It was, however, the underdogs who broke the deadlock. After some scrappy handling from both sides due to terrible weather conditions, Maids were awarded a scrum on their 22. A well worked set piece move from the scrum saw the ball out to Maidenhead’s outstanding centre Colin Kerins who skinned the Newbury back line to finish under the posts much to the shock of the hosts. Johnny Garius stepped up to place his conversion between the posts. Just a few minutes later, the huge Newbury forwards punched away at the Maids defence and shipped the ball out quickly to their pacy left winger who finished well from 22 yards. After possession was exchanged a couple of times, Maids came close to increasing their lead when Kerins picked up from the base of a ruck and very nearly repeated his try scoring exploits of the first minute when he rounded the home defence only to be stopped short this time, with the try line begging. This seemed to spur Newbury into action, they began to dominate at the breakdown and use their size advantage to good use and it wasn’t long before they scored again. Just inside Maidenhead’s half, Newbury managed to turnover possession at the ruck and gave quick ball to the excellent Newbury fly half who swiftly shipped it on to his centre who in turn fed their winger for his second of the game. The game stayed tight for the following 5 minutes with both sides making some errors and finding it difficult to cope with the extremely hostile weather conditions. Maidenhead, playing into the wind were clearly starting to tire, and when Newbury were awarded a scrum 15 metres from the Maids try line, the giant Newbury number 8 was able to slip a couple of tackles and put Newbury 15-7 ahead. The Maidenhead pack were finding it very hard to recycle the ball well and give the backs a good platform to play off due to the solid Newbury rucking and the failure of the referee to spot the persistent infringements at the breakdown. With 2 minutes until half time, the Newbury number 8 picked and went again at Maids to score his second and give the home team a 22-7 half time lead. The half-time interval saw the introduction of George Chetwood for Kieran ‘Gregan’ Egan, Max Fishwick for Angus Hickey and Cam ‘Nelson’ Avery for Pranav Pillai. The most important and impressive change at half-time was the introduction of Paul ‘Rocky’ Buttons at referee. After defeating Triple H in a ‘Hell in a Cell’ match Saturday night, the mighty man completed a 2000 mile round trip to come and ref the second half. The second period should have seen Maids return some points with the wind at their backs, but they found it difficult to break down the well organised home defence. Maids introduced Michael Matera for Andrew McGregor, Freddie Carter for Jack Pettigrew and Lewis Kiddell for Ollie Saunders but still could not find a way through. With only seconds remaining Maids were caught napping and Newbury got a late score with a tap and go off a penalty. A disappointing result of 27-7, but this promising Maidenhead side will look to hit back against local rivals Windsor in the next home fixture. |