We're Back

Well after what seems an eternity it is great to see persistence and hard work pay off, this team has done the hard work on the pitch all season due to the lack of key personnel due to college and long term injuries, no less than 5 players have come back into the team who have been very intermittent in their appearances, and their influence showed.
The first major impact was after quarter of an hour when a huge hit by Rhys Llewellyn who was filling in on the wing to add a defensive element to our team, a loose ball was gathered by Alistair Hewins who was captain for the day, it is good to see him return and make the effort to see the season out despite having not played for 6 months, in the knowledge that the end of season is important and you need as many players as possible to be available to carry on into the next season with a bit of confidence.
Throughout the game Ciaran Williams was dogged and sharp and kept the team going forward with confidence, Sam Hopkins was his normal dogged self and his attitude at the breakdown was exemplary, and with the other break away players in Antonio Lezzie, Aaron Perkins, Matthew (Colin McRae) Ballantyne, and Jack Duffy, they caused havoc to Broadstreets possession when it appeared they could not get going as our players simply got stuck into them and forced continual errors.
Our second try came through quick thinking from Aaron who has really added a strong attacking style to his play this year and carries well despite his size, forming a core of 4 duracells who kept going all day, held up just short of the line following a penalty the ball was released to Jack Duffy to used his vast weight to deceive the defenders and crash over.
At half time we led 12-5,our front row had been formidable and the added weight of a prop playing second row we started to grind down their pack who were man for man much bigger, but not as aggressive.
Cameron Lewis, Nathan Jones and Callum Bradshaw had been very impressive and their carrying was strong throughout.
The second half came with the added problem a strong wind against us, but we did not falter and became stronger our forwards grinding the opposition down, our backs were exemplary throughout with Lewis Eynon at 10 dictating play and bringing up our strong midfield of Alistair and Rory Beswick who had filled in at the last moment having been denied his chance to play upfront due to a withdrawal. They closed down any attacks and the oppositions wingers were denied any chance to attack. As the game opened up so did Lewis, Alistair and Rory who started to burst over the gain line, and our third try which was very much out of the barbarian mode when Sam Hawkes who had an excellent game despite an earlier episode of white line fever when he failed to capitalise on a break by Lewis, made a break from deep for several pairs of hands to link up with Jack Duffy to burst through a gap and offload through beautiful hands to Matthew Ballantyne to canter into the corner, 17-5 up with 15 minutes to go.
Dunvant did show a lack of discipline and with 10 minutes to go were down to 9 with Ciaran tackling a man with his back to him and receiving a yellow, hesitation by our defence out wide led to a huge gap being exploited with Sion Hill being unfairly blamed for a dogleg in the midfield.Now only 17-12 up Dunvant did not panic, and Matthew Richards moved off the wing into 9 and he showed real doggedness and strength as he had throughout and he continued to drive us forward around the fringes replicating what he had done out wide, Broadstreet attacked out wide for it to be snuffed out by Sion.
However a kick saw us pinned down into our 22, no need to panic as we took our lineout, and drove at pace up the pitch for Antonio to surge forward, we were then awarded a couple of penalties and kept going forward and were awarded a penalty in the opposition 22, this was duly kicked, 8 points ahead we continued to press again, unfortunately the game was blown up early when a Broadstreet player was wiped out and had a bit of whiplash. The whistle went and with it a massive sigh of relief was let out.
With 3 games to be played in the next week, we hope we can push on from this and release the green