TABARD 18 Staines 59 – London
League 2 North
Tabard
stuttered at the start of their home game
against a strong Staines side on Saturday and, although they rallied later on the damage was done and Staines never let their grip on the game relax and ended up defeating Tabard by 59 points
to 18.
There is no
doubt that Tabard’s defence was at fault
in the opening quarter of the game, however, as the game progressed Tabard
proved that they are not far short of the standard required to start to put
some wins under their belt. The pack,
although outweighed by Staines, easily held their own in the scrums, with the front row of
Chris Baker, Brain Gates and James Davey putting in a stalwart performance which was
definitely the high point of Tabards effort.
Outside the pack scrum half Francois Karstel had a good game and
the Tabard backs looked fluid in their attacking moves but, to be fair,
Tabard just did not have enough good ball to play with.
Staines got
into their stride quickly and caught Tabard a bit flatfooted with a try inside
5 minutes when second row Harrison was
over from a forward drive and fullback
Regan added the conversion. Tabard then
put their first points on the
board with a penalty from stand off
Richard Woodard. Staines then scored three tries in succession,
the first from wing Turner, and the next two
from hooker Myburg. Thus Tabard had a mountain to climb after twenty minutes and before the half was over Staines
stand off Knills had kicked a penalty and he then
went over the line himself to put
Staines 30 points to three ahead at the break.
At the
start of the second half Tabard’s early
pressure was rewarded with another penalty from Woodard but Staines just kept
the scoreboard ticking over with tries from Harrison again, centre Turner,
second row Cleary, centre Edwards and wing Leigh. With Knills adding
two conversions
this brought Staines to 59 points to 6 ahead.
Tabard kept
going until the end however and got their first try from a swiftly taken free
kick. Centre Ed Orchard took the pass and he jinked
impressively through the defence to
score under the posts giving Woodard an easy conversion. Karstel then
scored a great solo
try. Finding himself with space on his own 22 metre line he stretched his legs to outrun the Staines defence and touch down in the corner thus making the final
score 59 points to 18 to Staines.
Team: Smith, Ashcroft, Thomas (Nansoz
60m), Orchard, Hopcroft, Woodard, Karstel, Davey, Gates (Wilkinson 65m), Baker, Visser,
Crocker, Montagu, Matheson (Perkins 65m), and Stoba.