U16s turn muck into gold against Esher

Maidenhead U16s 16 v Esher U16s 7

Sunday 28th February 2010

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Mudlarks would scavenge the banks of the Thames at low tide, searching for anything of value amongst the stinking ooze littered with the abandoned corpses of rats, dogs and England Attack Coaches. Only the desperate would try to earn a living this way. “For the most part they are ragged, and in a very filthy state… The parents of many of them are coalwhippers, and their mothers frequently sell fruit in the street,” according to Henry Mayhew in 1851. Nothing much has changed, has it?

On a pitch that looked playable if damp to start, but which deteriorated into a greasy morass, the mudlarks of Maidenhead gutsed out a tough victory over their visitors from Surrey.

Esher started by throwing big forwards up round the fringes and it looked like the conditions would suit them. However it was quickly clear that the Maidenhead pack would be able to hold its own in the set scrum, getting the nudge on Esher in the first few contests. “They punch above their weight,” remarked an admiring visiting spectator. Maids spent the first ten minutes camped in the Esher 22, probing right and left, not afraid to go wide and looking confident. Tom Eckles, solid all day in appalling conditions, caught a clearance and ran back with menace. Quick ruck ball looked certain to open a three to one overlap but the ball was slapped out of Luke Thomas’s hands and Esher conceded only a penalty. Kicked to the corner, caught and driven, the ball came back left through good hands and Alex Avery was unlucky not to score, losing the ball in the tackle when over the line. Twelve minutes in and Ed Kaye gained the deserved reward for Maidenhead’s dominance, flopping over after Seb Coric and Mike Trevena had driven big holes in the defence.

If anything, the next ten minutes saw even more attractive rugby from the home side. Ignoring the conditions, the backline began to show their skills, handling as if the ball was clean and dry. Laurence MacSwan who scored the second, crashing through onto Leo Smith’s pass after Jacob Sanders fixed the defence with a powerful pickup and drive from the base of a scrum.

To their credit, Esher began to bash and crash their way back into the game, keeping the play narrow and using their weight to inch forward. Maids tackled and tackled, none more than Mike Winter, who was completely mud-covered by the time Esher drove over for a deserved try on the stroke of half-time. They converted to narrow the lead to just three points.

The first 20 minutes of the second half was a bit of a shambles, neither set of mudlarks now able to find anything of value in the muck. The now ruined ball squirted here and there and neither side could manage more than a couple of completed passes in a row. Esher probably coped better and had most of the possession but Maids defended with courage and character, held on and kicked for position when they could. Sure enough, a penalty was awarded in range and Dominik Bart duly made the score 13-7.

Esher came storming up behind their kickoff and camped in the home red zone for the next 10 minutes. Fantastic tackles by Winter, MacSwan and Louis Basson held them back and tireless work from Mark Hine, Sam Balfour, Calum O’Flaherty, Mike Trevena and Bryn Evans resisted every drive from the big Esher pack. With two minutes left, Basson’s long clearance kick relieved the pressure and Maidenhead were able to flood downfield, winning another kickable penalty that Bart slotted to make the game safe.

Squad: Alex Avery, Sam Balfour, Mark Hine, Calum O’Flaherty, Nic Jones, Mike Trevena, Iain Whiteford, Bryn Evans, Ed Kaye, Mike Winter, Seb Coric, Jacob Sanders, Luke Thomas, Louis Basson, Leo Smith, Shiv Khindria, Dhruv Surya, Markus Olivier, Michael Anderson, Laurence MacSwan, Daniel AJ, Tom Eckles.