TABARD 12 Woodford 44 – London
League 2 North
Tabard,
having already lost their battle to avoid relegation, found themselves forced
to field an extremely weak side against Woodford on Saturday and as a result they were
beaten by 44 points to 12 but it was by no means as one-sided as the score
would suggest.
Both teams started hesitatingly
and, if anything Woodford made the most errors but they enjoyed slightly
more possession and opened the scoring
with a dropped goal from their stand
off, Levis, after 12 minutes. Tabard
responded almost from the kick off, awarded a penalty close in, Tabards stand
off Jack Reilly opted to run the ball and he caught the Woodford defence flat,
enabling him to score under the posts to give himself an easy conversion.
There was
then a period of duelling between the two sides but Woodford were using their
three-quarters very effectively and in the end their wing, Sigakalele,
went over in the corner, following a pick up at the base of the scrum, to give
Woodford a single point lead. Then
Tabards scrum half Francois Karstel had to leave the
field injured and this gave Woodford an edge they quickly capitalised on with two more tries before
half time, the first for flanker Lawlor after some
pressure and the second by Sigakalele again when a
cruel bounce from a kick ahead eluded
the Tabard defender and the try was scored.
With one converted, Tabard were 7 points to 20 behind at the turn round.
In the
second half, Woodford had the elements with them and, despite some excellent
tackling from the
Tabard players, centre Mike Thomas in
particular, Woodford went further ahead
with tries from Levis and number
8, Connell. After this the game settled down and
Tabard showed some nice touches with number 8, Gareth Davies and wing Neil
Hopcroft having some good attacking runs
but to no avail.
As the game
drew to a close
the Woodford fullback Luggeri, went over after a
three-quarter move but Tabard were still
game and replied almost straightaway. This time, Davies made a half break down the
centre and as the Woodford defence closed in he cross-kicked for Tabards wing,
Chris Beadle to score in the corner.
Unfortunately, in injury time, from a line-out drive Woodford’s flanker, Lawlor, was
over again to complete the scoring and
leave Tabard the losers by 44 points to
12.
Team: Fleuren, Dennison,
Thomas, Ashcroft, Hopcroft, Reilly, Karstel (Beadle
35m), Baker, Gates, Wilkinson, O’Connor, Troyer, Perkins (Webster 75), Matheson
(Wyatt 40m) and Davies.
.