League Match
Midland 5 West North
24 Nov 2007
Aldridge vs Cleobury Mortimer
Lots of honest endeavour, plenty of work
rate and a solid defence throughout unfortunately wasn’t sufficient
to overcome our well-organised visitors and produce the result we still
crave for. Personnel changes and injuries to key players during the encounter
also didn’t help our cause.
We again took time to settle down and find our rhythm which gave the initiative
to Cleobury Mortimer so we spent a lot of the early period on the back foot
The defence was impressive though, with “Forest” and Foster
(a bit of alliteration there) having the pace to get about and break down
threatening moves early on. The lineout went well again with Tony Kelly
taking more than a fair share of the spoils and the scrummage held up in
the tight and loose to keep the lid on things, reducing the visitor’s
effectiveness. The backs also showed their potential combining well with
the back row to produce a few determined plays but it was the visitors who
took the lead after 25 minutes with a long-range penalty from the boot of
inside centre Alan Shields. Another, 5 minutes later, was probably a fair
reflection of the game thus far. They continued to threaten but the game
was turned on its head when Foster pounced on a wayward ball at the base
of a scrum on the visitors 22. A quick feed set winger Dan Hall off at pace
for the visitors posts some 70 m away. He easily won the race and with the
cover defence trailing in his wake had plenty of time in hand to dab the
ball down between the sticks. Alex Yates added the conversion and Aldridge
took a 7 – 6 lead into half time. This changed the whole complexion
of the match. It was the visitors who now had to play catch-up rugby and
although we didn’t make best use of the slope and elements in the
second half we had a couple of chances to widen the gap. Some good following
up from Foster got him over into the corner and a try was awarded, however,
following a discussion with the opposition captain, the referee bizarrely
rescinded his decision and awarded a knock-on instead. To be fair, the referee
was probably the only person on the ground who hadn’t spotted it but,
not wishing to sound unsporting, a score by any means at this stage would
have been welcome and would probably changed the outcome. A 5-metre scrum
was our other opportunity and with us driving forward, indecision whether
to push on or pick up resulted in confusion and the chance was lost. With
full back Tony Jaep off with concussion and Ben Pittam carrying a shoulder
injury we came under increasing pressure and couldn’t clear our territory.
Shields put the visitor’s back into the lead with his third penalty
and right on the final whistle, centre John Hulland won the race to just
get his hand on a charged down clearance kick.
Final score:- Aldridge 7pts - Cleobury Mortiomer 14 pts
Aldridge : - Tries: - Dan Hall. Conversions:- Alex Yates
Cleobury Mortimer:-Tries: - John Hulland. Penalties:- Alan Shields (3)
3,2,1
3 pts - Ben Vaughan (Sorry, it's still the only photo I could find)
2 pts - Tony Kelly
1 pts -Ben Pittam
Second Team Result:-
Bloxwich 3 points - Aldridge 31points
2nd XV Scorers - Tries: Dave Wright, Trevor Lowe + Adam & Leon. Conversions:- Barry-John Jaep+ Adam. Drop Goal :- Adam ( I know it doesn't all add up. We're working on it.
Third Team Result:-
B'Ham CS II 35 pts vs Aldridge 5pts
3rd XV Scorers - Tries:- Paul Hubbard
Next week Aldridge are on league duty. Away to Eccleshall
Kick-off - 2.15 pm
