Brentwood U16s 23 Braintree U16s 0

Brentwood dazzle in the ice…

In sticking with the weather theme this week’s match was played in arctic cold and with my fingers having gone numb within 2 minutes of kick off I wondered why I bother to stand on the touchline every Sunday instead of spending it sleeping off Saturday night like your average 18 year old girl. And then the boys pulled out their best performance of the season bar the Golden Boot and I remembered why.

The game started pretty well with both William and Chris Doble making good yardage every time they got the ball but Brentwood’s discipline was undoing much of their good work with penalties being conceded left, right and centre. Braintree were slowly gaining field position due to said penalties and when they had a lineout inside the Brentwood 22 I’ll admit I was worried. But then for once in his life Billy did something useful and ripped the ball superbly from the Braintree catcher as soon as he hit the deck which not only prevented Braintree troubling the Brentwood defence but allowed Brentwood to launch a counter attack. Good linking between both backs and forwards took Brentwood rapidly up field until they finally won a penalty instead of conceding one. The forwards continued pummelling the Braintree defence and eventually the ball got stuck in a ruck 5 metres short of the Braintree line. With Brentwood going forward it was a scrum 5 to them but unfortunately James knocked it on at the back. It didn’t matter though as Brentwood proceeded to win the ball against the head and this time James made no mistake, hurtling off the back of the scrum where he popped the ball to Charlie who popped it back after drawing the man for James to crash over for the score. Charlie’s conversion was judged to have fallen just short although this was debatable to some of the Brentwood supporters, 5-0 Brentwood.

From then on Brentwood didn’t look back. Almost immediately, following a Braintree knock on, Brentwood pounced on the ball. James crashed through the middle taking a few defenders with him and William appeared from nowhere with the ball and acres of space in front of him. Living up to his Willy the Winger nickname he raced…well as quickly as a prop can…towards the try line. Unfortunately he didn’t have the gas to score himself so knowing that Jake was on his shoulder he drew the man before passing the ball. Jake took a covering defender on the outside and just as he was getting too close to the touchline for comfort Joel came flying through to take the inside ball and run in untouched under the posts. A great try to watch became even better when Charlie added the extra 2, 12-0 Brentwood.

For the remainder of the half the Brentwood forwards huffed, puffed, crashed and bashed in exerting all the pressure they possibly could on Braintree. To their credit Braintree defended well, not allowing Brentwood any more tries but in the last play before half time they gave away a penalty smack in front of the posts. Adam, on to replace the temporarily injured Charlie, made no mistake with the ensuing kick and at half time Brentwood were 15-0 up.

The second half started with Billy reverting to the numpty part of his game and giving away a penalty for taking the man in the air straight from the kick off (I was going to be nice to Billy this week, but then he gesticulated rudely at me in the club house so I decided not to, Michael can be witness to this…). Fortunately for Brentwood said penalty lead to nothing and Brentwood soon recovered the ball. They worked their way down field with James taking half of the Braintree defence clinging on to his various limbs for dear life to the try line with him. The ball was recycled and somehow James had managed to emerge from the mass of bodies onto the blind side again to receive a cunning pop pass from Michael and score his second of the match. The conversion missed, 20-0 Brentwood.

Shortly afterwards the Brentwood forwards unleashed a series of energy sapping mauls whilst the backs got cold. Michael was in his element barking orders and the forwards were only too happy to carry on marching up the field. Sooner or later Braintree had to give and Brentwood were awarded another kickable penalty. Charlie, now back on the pitch, stepped up and banged it over, 23-0 Brentwood.

The last part of the match belonged to Braintree with them trying hard to breach the Brentwood defence but with Michael being a general nuisance around the ruck and scrum areas, the forwards counter driving well and Charlie rocketing diagonal kicks downfield whenever he got possession it was a hard task.

Deep into the second half Brentwood’s entire game was summed up with one kick by Adam, a chip over the defence which normally would have been collected by Braintree or run into touch had the perfect ‘Wilkinson’ bounce on it and Adam recollected well with the result being a Brentwood penalty and practically the end of the game. Braintree were kept out, the full time whistle was blown, Ian was happy, he kept the team talk short and my hands were happy to not have to staying the cold for any longer! Full time Brentwood 23 Braintree 0.

And to end I would like to apologise on behalf of our useless touch judges. If it wasn’t bad enough that Bill had the flag taken away from him Keith then added to the general uselessness by having to be instructed by the referee that actually when the ball went into touch waving the flag would be useful…back to touch judge school for you two! (Of course I’d volunteer to do this job if I wasn’t so busy frantically scribbling notes…)