| Youth Reports - 18/12/11 |
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| Written by Andrew Baron | |
| Sunday, 18 December 2011 | |
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Colts - Eastern Counties Cup Diss 7 Shelford 26 Shelford Colts embarked on another EC cup campaign, this time to defend a trophy which many of them played a part in winning last year. We squandered a number of chances to clear our lines but often took the wroing decisions, we just couldn't get out of our 22. Then suddenly from a turnover ball, and a long clearing kick, superbly taken on the bounce by Lewis Green saw him run clear for a try against the run of play, 5-0. Another long period of pressure saw a big drive over the Shelford line, but Connor Denton got under it to hold the try up. At this point we had no open play for a while which suited the very big Diss pack. However Shelford used their numerical advantage to attack and Calum Miller's fantastic breakaway run, during which he sold the opposition back a great dummy, he got held up 2 yards from the line, this resulted in a Shelford lineout, the excellent Sam Perry, who took almost everything that came his way in the lineout, collected the ball and quick ball across the backs saw Cracknell go over, converted by Cracknell 26-7. Under 16's Peterborough 43 Shelford 46 Shelford tries: George Smith (3), Toby Hackett (2), Stephen Douglas, Ivan Karsten, Sam Jones Conversions: Karsten (3) A quite surreal game ended up with Shelford hanging on to claim a narrow win after an end-to-end second half which incredibly yielded eleven tries and 67 points. Coach Finlayson had had a coronary long before the end brought on by the quality of the defending but at least the spectacle warmed the frozen spectators on the coldest day of the year to date. The first half offered no clue to the mayhem that would ensue later. Shelford showed some incisive finishing as they turned over the ball three times to engineer tries out wide for centre Toby Hackett, fly half Ivan Karsten and winger George Smith. Peterborough kept them selves in the game when they scored from a tap penalty. The successful Borough conversion made the half time score 15-7 to Shelford. The half time talk focussed on trying to start well and impose the Shelford game. However it couldn't have gone more wrong as Peterborough caught their own kick off and burst through to score after about 8 seconds of the second half. They then scored again immediately from the restart as they ran through some weak tackling to gain a 19-15 lead. This reverse seemed to sting Shelford into life. George Smith scored his second try out wide. Flanker Sam Jones then caught the restart and ran through the whole Peterborough team and with the help of a couple of meaty hand-offs went in under the posts. Then centre Stephen Douglas made a trademark sharp inside break to record Shelford's 6th try. Ivan Karsten converted all three tries and Shelford looked comfortable at 36-19 up. However Peterborough kept battling - they ran a quick penalty to score again and then took advantage of some comic confusion in the Shelford back three to drag the score back to 36-31. Again provoked into action, Shelford span the ball wide to outside centre Hackett for him to score his second try. Surely the restored ten point margin would be enough for Shelford? By this time though Shelford had lost all of their defensive organisation and resolve and the Peterborough backs seemd to be able to run through at will. Peterborough scored two more tries simply by running directly through the middle of the Shelford defence. At the beginning of the game Shelford had been confident of scoring 40 points - but never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined that they would score 40 pointsand be behind. A big final effort was required and some great handling put winger Smith in for his hattrick. 46-43 to the visitors with five minutes to go. Borough fought hard but could not get the final score which would have given them a remarkable victory. Shelford clung on but there was no joy in the narrow win. The usually well-organised and resolute defence had melted away and hard work is required on the training ground from every team member to get the performance level back to where it should be. Under 15's Shelford 19 Peterborough 39 Shelford u15s struggled for numbers and could assemble only 13 players to face a large Peterborough squad. The visitors sportingly offered to treat the match as a training game with a 0-0 score. But, with the loan of a Peterborough player to prop and the addition of a friend of Shelford players (Hugo), who had come along to watch, we scraped 15 to make up a team. The cold weather appeared to affect the home team to a greater extent than the opposing team from more northerly climes and the first half was a generally sluggish affair on Shelford's part. Peterborough went ahead early but Shelford quickly responded with a breakaway try from David Pugh, scored under the posts, with Peter Gordon getting the conversion. Shelford's spell in the lead soon came to an end with three tries in succession from the visitors. Shelford got one back, when David touched down again from a lineout close to the Peterborough try line. The visitors secured one more try to leave the half-time score at 12-27 to the away side. Shelford began to wake up or defrost in the second half and put up a better fight but could not prevent Peterborough getting two more tries to put the score at 12-39. Some ground was regained when a well-worked passing move from the home side put Dom Talbot through to secure Shelford's third try, ably converted by Peter with a very good kick. The game ended 19-39. There were some determined performances from Shelford players and a very commendable debut from Hugo. Hugo will be an asset to the team if he decides to join Shelford (hint). But Peterborough were deserved winners with a very strong performance, and standout displays from their Nos 6 and 15. The game was played in good spirit and we enjoyed the fine singing from the visitors back in the clubhouse. Thanks also to the Peterborough player who helped us out in the front row.
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 20 December 2011 ) |
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