Maids stick it up their jumpers (20.11.04)

MAIDS ground out victory against a poor St Mary’s Old Boys side by two tries and two penalties to nil on Saturday.
Maids had most of the play in the first half and should have scored at least four tries, a combination of dropped passes and selfishness meant they only managed to score one try through No.8 Piers Morgan.
Although they had few ideas in attack, other than kicks ahead by their fly-half, St Mary’s tackled well to deny tries by Mark Mueller, Stuart McKay and Ben Ayres.
The home side did manage to work a two-man overlap on two occasions, but each time the right wing dropped the ball with the line at his mercy.
Danny Walton missed an easy penalty before going off with a pulled muscle and winger Martin Faurie managed to drop a couple of passes which might have led to scores.
Paul Jones and Jacques Botha won some very good lineout ball but dangerman Jonny Hammond, although always making ground, never managed to quite break clear.
Simon Cripps had a much improved game on last week’s effort and always took two or three defenders to bring him down.
Mark Ruddick kicked a penalty in front to give Maids a deserved 8-0 lead, but several chances of extending the lead with penalties were missed.
The resort of kicking for position, instead of kicking for goal, was partially successful when Morgan took a tap down from Jones who ran round the front of the lineout to score a well-worked try virtually unopposed.
Ruddick kept the home side on the back foot with long raking touch kicks and the Maids defence close to the scrum prevented St Mary’s forwards making much progress from back-row moves.
Ruddick kicked another penalty from in front to increase the visitors’ lead, and then moved to scrum-half after Ayres, who had been a constant threat taking the shortest route through the forwards, suffered a blow in the eye and finished the game on the wing.
Danny Martin moved smoothly to fly-half from full-back, where his lines of running and great pace are more productive, although his time at No.15 was worth the experiment.
This was a good win for Maids under difficult conditions and away from home with excellent performances by Mueller, Jones and Ruddick in particular.
However, 16-0 could easily have been 30-0 if fairly easy penalties had been kicked and underlined the danger of going into any match at whatever level without a front line kicker.
In contrast to the shambles against Oxford Harlequins last week, the game was excellently officiated upon by a referee whose quick and fair decisions were appreciated by players and spectators alike.
The man of the match was lock forward Mueller who, as always, worked hard in the scrums and lineouts, was a big handful with ball in hand and nearly scored on at least two occasions.