U15s 12 Thurrock U15s 15

Brentwood boys in need of some caffeine…

To put it mildly, it wasn’t the best of starts. On a cold morning the boys looked like they’d much rather still be under their duvets than on the rugby pitch, as did the majority of the parents…In stark contrast Thurrock were raring to go and straight from the off were well in the ascendancy. From the whistle they attacked and attacked until finally the Brentwood defence had to give and Thurrock crossed for the opening try. The conversion went wide, 5-0 to Thurrock.

The score woke the boys up slightly as they started to actually get over the gain line in the next part of the game. Another good bit of play saw Thurrock back peddling in defence and showed that when Brentwood started to play a bit they were capable of scoring but the ball was lost in contact and Thurrock cleared their lines.

However an overthrow from the resulting lineout played into Brentwood’s hands nicely as they won the ball back quickly and with Thurrock’s defence slightly scrambled up, they spread the ball wide quickly to Adam who had a dart up the wing, popped it inside to Billy before he got pushed into touch and Billy shipped it on to Daniel who dived over to score. Billy’s conversion was spot on 7-5 to Brentwood, which was how the half ended.

The beginning of the 2^nd half was equally as dismal as the beginning of the first with the handling and contact situations both being pretty poor from Brentwood. The boys were swiftly undoing the good work they’d done at the end of the first half and to top it off conceded another try. The conversion was missed, 10-5 to Thurrock and not even ten minutes of the 2^nd half gone.

This again gave the boys a much needed kick up the backside and they began to gain some momentum going downfield but the ball was knocked on in Thurrock’s 22. However this turned out to be a good thing. Brentwood put the shove on at the scrum, disrupting the quality of Thurrock’s ball, and Chris Doble, bound at flanker this time round, came flying off the flank and straight at the fly half. Chris’ large presence getting nearer and nearer caused a delay in the attempted clearance kick and gave him enough time to get there and charge it down, albeit that he had to sacrifice his chances of having kids in the future for the good of the team…He managed to compose himself enough to dive on the loose ball over the try line and scored. Billy’s conversion just drifted wide 12-10 to Brentwood and Chris spent the remainder of the match on the touchline walking like John Wayne.

Brentwood were seemingly livening up a bit, some good play starting to happen and visiting Thurrock’s 22 quite regularly. Crucially though, Thurrock’s defending meant Brentwood were not leaving the 22 with points and there was still only 2 separating the sides.

Billy sent in a great kick from fly half and it bounced nicely to put Thurrock’s defence in trouble and with the chase and tackle from Sam Fry as soon as the player had received the ball, it looked like Brentwood were turning up the heat.

Alas no. The problems started again from then on. Weirdly the previous evening William had opened a fortune cookie from our local Chinese and found the message “It’s not the hard work that’s the problem, it’s the discipline.” Which really would sum up Brentwood’s problems nicely. Penalty after penalty was conceded, Thurrock taking chunks of territory each time until they were camped in the Brentwood 22. Another penalty left Brentwood defence on their own try line and a missed tackle gave Thurrock the winning try. The conversion was missed, game over, 15-12 to Thurrock and a pretty disappointing display from Brentwood.