U15s 29 Romford U15s 0

Brentwood progress…

The start was drastically better than last week, not brilliant but goodish with lots of possession and the scrum going well. The game finally burst into life with a lineout steal from James deep in his own 22. Not only did he steal the ball, relieving pressure from Brentwood but he then set off on a 50 metre run down the field. Support was good and quick hands culminated in the ball being held up over the try line.

From the resulting scrum the ball was bashed up the middle a couple of times until Sam Morgan found a gap to crash through. Billy’s conversion was good 7-0 Brentwood.

The boys were beginning to play good running rugby, the handling was good and overlaps were finally being used! Romford, however, were also trying to up their game and the Brentwood defence was looking decidedly flakey when Romford were on the attack.

Brentwood produced some more good running rugby, the offloading in the tackle was almost sublime and had the last pass gone to hand a brilliant try would have been scored. Romford then tried to run the ball out of their own 22 but a Brentwood knock on in a ruck resulted in a defensive scrum for Romford. Brentwood put the pressure on and with the Romford scrum going backwards the scrum half was under huge pressure. Sam Morgan, spotting this, flew off the scrum and made a great tackle to force a turnover.

William picked up and made a good run down the middle and James was on hand to finish off, losing his boot in the process. Billy’s conversion narrowly missed, 12-0 to Brentwood.

The boys then had a bad patch, conceding a penalty and then gobbed off to concede another 10 metres, probably following Ian’s example from last week! Billy, however, donned his goalkeeping gloves again and managed to stop the kick from going into touch, adding a good run to the catch for good measure.

Half time came, 12-0 to Brentwood.

The start of the second half was very good; the forwards produced a great maul that went almost the entire length of the pitch and Chris Doble was at the bottom of the mass of forwards to score. The conversion dropped short, 17-0 Brentwood.

Brentwood’s next try was probably their best try of the season so far. From the restart catch Michael threw a beautifully timed pass to Chris Doble opening up miles of space. Chris set off on a charge downfield and when the defender was drawing near, passed to Jake. Jake stepped the last man and ran round under the posts to finish off. Billy’s conversion bisected the posts, 24-0 to Brentwood.

From then on the game was all Brentwood. Brentwood pressure mounted and Romford were forced into giving away a penalty. The penalty was tapped to Sam Morgan who smashed the defender out of the way with his head (injury count: 4). Everyone was then expecting the ball to go left but Charlie threw a neat dummy and sliced straight through the defensive line and very nearly made the try line himself but the ball was held up.

From the scrum Brentwood continued to pile on the pressure and won another penalty. The ball was tapped to Sam again who got his body position so low that he was almost parallel to the floor and practically impossible to tackle, allowing him to slide over for the try. Billy’s conversion was an unlucky miss as it hit the post and bounced out rather than in. You see I am nice to Billy occasionally! The final whistle came shortly after, 29-0 to Brentwood at full time and chances to defend the Essex Cup still alive.