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U16Bs' bonus point win over Reading Reading
U16A 24 v Maidenhead U16B 27 Sunday 28th March 2010 |
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Maidenhead U16B won this league clash with a bonus point without ever playing to their potential. Perhaps they were upset by the absence of any opposition for nearly half an hour before the game and a feeling that they only had to step on to the pitch to win, or possibly they were put off by the presence in the opposition ranks of 4 of their own squad mates, gamely making themselves available for Reading in order to let a 15 a side match take place. Throughout the game they put together exhilarating passages of play only to lose the ball in contact or fail to make the scoring pass to a team mate. This led to frustration both on and off the field. They also missed a few tackles so that promising positions were turned over allowing Reading to run out of defence. An injury to Reading’s hooker early in the game lead to uncontested scrums almost all the way through, which certainly caused Maids some problems as it changed the rhythm of the game. Maidenhead took the lead after 15 minutes: after both sides had had initial thrusts repelled, Maidenhead turned over a ball on the halfway line and Jacob Sanders picked up and ran 50 metres to score under the posts, Scott Atherton converting 0-7. From the kick off Maidenhead stormed back down field with the ball moving to through Scott Atherton to Greg McHugh down the left wing and then back across the line for Dhruv Surya to score in the right hand corner. 0-12, looking good and Maids seemed to have some coherence and momentum, but from the next attack Reading intercepted a pass from the maul and scored from 60 metres. 5-12. Maids had eased off and a lack of organisation in defence saw them concede another try from broken play when Tom Allen (playing for Reading) scored in the corner 10-12. After halftime, Reading broke from the kick off and Alex McCulloch (playing for Reading) was only denied a try by a foot in touch. Maidenhead drove back down field and the drive was only stopped by an injury to a Reading player who was trapped by one of his colleagues at the bottom of a maul. After the resultant scrum, Maidenhead broke down the blindside and Ed Kaye was on hand to score. 10-17. Once again, though, Maids lost concentration, didn’t organise themselves for the kick off and were immediately under pressure. Attempting to tackle round the chest led to a number of missed tackles and Reading scored and converted the try 17-17. It looked like Maidenhead were going to lose the game as they continued to make basic errors. Discipline was poor on both sides and game became tetchy and tense. Then suddenly Maidenhead put two passages of play together both of which resulted in tries in the left hand corner, one apiece for Niall Collins and Jacob Sanders. 17-27. That looked like the final act, but on the last play Reading scored under the posts and converted the try 24-27. At the end of the day a bonus point win, but considerable room for improvement. |