Staines 50 TABARD 3 – London
League 2 North
Tabards
season continued on Saturday with yet another loss against Staines but the game
was more exciting than the final scoreline of 50 points to three suggests, with
Tabard having some good periods of attacking pressure but without reward.
After the
game the referee was surprised at the standard of Tabards play and remarked “it hardly
looked like a game between sides from both ends of the table”. However, despite Tabard’s performance they
were soundly beaten and this was yet again a heroic performance by a team not
strong enough on the day. For Tabard,
centre Michael Thomas had a powerful running game and stand off Jack Reilly was
in good form but Staines were able to penetrate the Tabard defence, especially
as the game drew to a close.
The game
started evenly enough, in fact after the first few minutes Tabard were the
better side and it looked like an upset might be in the bag as they converted
the early pressure into points with Reilly converting a penalty goal after five
minutes. The game then settled into a
close fought affair but Staines came back into it and after some pressure on the
Tabard line wing Willis was over in the
corner. Then Tabard’s injury
jinx struck again when number 8, Gareth Davies, a key player in the Tabard
tight five, had to leave the field after a bang on the head. While Tabard were
regrouping Staines scored a second try, this time from flanker Silvero. This
proved to be the final score in the first half and the teams turned round with
Tabard losing by 10
points to three.
Tabard were
caught flat footed at the start of the
second half and Staines quickly scored again with big second row Harrison going
over under the posts giving fullback Cornish an easy conversion. The game then settled down to a fairly even
affair with Tabard having their chances especially winger Neil Hopcroft who
showed some speed on the wing and Thomas who showed a lot of penetration in the
centre and had the Staines defence
worried at times. Unfortunately it was
to no avail and midway through the half Staines had a good period scoring three
tries from centre Turner, second row Broadhurst and
scrum half Lee, with Cornish adding one conversion and Lee two, to effectively
put the game beyond Tabards reach.
Nevertheless
Tabard then had a good spell of pressure and looked like scoring a couple of
times, with Reilly coming closest but the Staines defence held and Tabard were
without reward. Then, in injury time
Staines scored two more tries from Willis and Harrison, Lee converted one and
Staines had beaten Tabard by 50 points to 3.
Team: Fleuren (Wyatt
25m), Beadle, Thomas, Ashcroft, Hopcroft, Reilly, Karstel,
Long, Baker, Wilkinson, O’Connor, Troyer, Perkins, Stoba
and Davies (O’Connell 35m).