Rugby Match Report  - League Match Midlands 5 West (North)

13 February 2010

Aldridge  vs Hanford

Hanford had won the earlier fixture 24 – 7 so the indications were that it was always going to a tough task for us to turn this around.  The first half indicated differently - where for the second week running we dominated, had all the territory and created lots of opportunities which, if only a fraction had been converted into scores, should have put us home and dry by the break.  An Alex Yates penalty after 10 minutes gave us the lead but despite our dominance, with lots of good work from Ben Pittam, it was another 20 minutes before we scored again – a typical Lennie Jaep effort, crashing over close to the posts off the back of a 5 metre scrum. Alex added the extras to give us a 10-point lead at the break.  A second strike from Yates early in the second half increased our lead further but Hanford came back straight away with a switch move in the centre which put Phil Tremble away down the left flank through some ineffective tackling and over in the corner.

 We then stopped playing and began to lose our momentum; Hanford gained confidence as a result and turned on its head what had so far been a comfortable afternoon for us.  They slowly gained the ascendancy and had us penned back against our line for long periods.  With 10 minutes remaining, winger Chris Davies crossed close to the posts, No10 Matt Churchill converted to set up a frantic finish.  With 5 minutes remaining we made a rare sortie into the opposition territory, won a penalty out wide which Yates slotted to give us a little more breathing space but the visitors came back at us to set up in the closing minutes a series of penalty moves along our line which we just about managed to thwart to claim the result.

Final Score: - Aldridge 16 points – Hanford 12 points

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