Brentwood U15s 19 Hertford U15s 24

Brentwood lose a lengthy encounter…

It was a lethargic start from the boys, despite them all having an extra hours sleep from the clocks going back. By the time the forwards began showing some sign of waking up with good picking and driving from Rob, Billy and Ross, Ian’s hands had been on top of his head for a while.

The lack of energy from the boys resulted in the ball being knocked on, thrown away or turned over so many times I began to wonder whether the boys think rugby players go into hibernation during the winter months.

A good run from captain Jake late in the first third (or was it a quarter? Or an eighth? Did anyone know?) opened up a space and an overlap was, you guessed it, butchered. Fortunately, between them, Chris Doble and Billy managed to save the situation by finding a gap to go through and Billy dived over. Chris Doble got the conversion, 7-0 Brentwood and the end of the first third/quarter/whatever it was.

The next part of the match started on a brighter note with some good interlinking between Rob, Chris McCarthy, Chris Doble, Billy and Elliot and the move ended just in touch. Better still from the resulting lineout Hertford knocked the ball on and Brentwood were awarded the scrum in a great attacking position. And then promptly nodded off again and lost the ball against the head, something which is normally unheard of.

Having won the ball against the head Hertford launched an attack which had the Brentwood defence back peddling and suddenly Brentwood were looking at a defensive lineout five metres from their try line. The ball was over thrown and caught by a Hertford player who made no mistake in racing over to score. The conversion was missed, 7-5 to Brentwood.

After more good work from Rob to make ground, Billy produced a jinking run from around the fringe of a ruck and managed to dive over in a similar place to his first try. This time however the conversion was missed, 12-5 to Brentwood.

Things were starting to pick up with the forwards still working hard and Rob having seemingly eaten his Weetabix as he made another break but the third/twelfth came to an end and Sven style mass replacements were bought on.

In the next part of the game Ian’s word of the day was discovered. Stupid. It was heard being yelled so frequently someone suggested we should buy him a thesaurus for Christmas so he can vary his vocabulary slightly. In fairness though, he did have a point as Brentwood were just continually losing the ball. There were however some flashes of inspiration. In his own 22 Chris McCarthy worked hard to turn the ball over and a counter attack was launched. The ball was flicked out to Joel who passed to Roland coming into the line from fullback and he made a good break to open up some space. Billy was on his shoulder to continue the move and he found Joel in acres of space. Joel put the burners on and flew up the touchline to run around under the sticks. Chris Doble got the conversion, 19-5 Brentwood and the end of this part of the game.

The next chunk of the game was bad for Brentwood, conceding penalties left right and centre, mainly for hands in the ruck. A pause in the game was long enough for Steve Doble to tell the boys “You’re not cricketers”, I would think that’s probably a good thing, can you imagine the state those nice cricket whites would end up in?

More overlaps were butchered and the boys were then given a lesson in how to use an overlap as Hertford got one of their own for the first time in the game and put the opportunity away perfectly. The conversion was slotted, 19-12 to Brentwood.

The next restart was hideous, tackles missed everywhere very nearly saw Brentwood concede a try but Jake managed to produce a try saving tackle just in time. Hertford however, were now well in the ascendancy and when the Brentwood defence went missing again Hertford made no mistake in converting the chance to points and went over in the corner. The conversion missed leaving the score 19–17 with Brentwood clinging on to a 2 point lead.

Surely time was nearly up though and if the boys could just keep hold of the ball they’d keep hold of the win. Well that’s what we thought anyway. Play went on forever despite the ball going dead several times and thus full time could have been called. Hertford made a break down the wing about twenty minutes into the exceedingly long injury time and with the Brentwood defence seemingly away with the fairies walked in a try. The conversion was scored, 24-19 to Hertford and the full time whistle was blown. There’s a surprise.

After the game however it was nice to see that Ian’s talk focused on the positives of the performance and that he used his new favourite word of stupid only around 200 times rather than the 500 many were expecting. A few years ago boys the wrath of Ian after the match probably would have reduced the vast majority to tears (and I don’t mean of laughter) so at least the one plus point as far as I can see is that everyone was man enough to take it and hopefully will now be motivated enough to put together a much better team performance in the next match.