U15s 0 Chingford U15s 7

Essex Cup Semi final

Brentwood lose heart breaker…

Despite sounding very up for the game the boys looked decidedly nervous before kick off. On the pitch the nervousness seemed to turn to indiscipline as penalty after penalty was given away by the boys, which meant they couldn’t get into any kind of continuity. Eventually, when they managed to keep their discipline in tact, they put together a period of ferocious mauling which saw them march up the pitch and over the try line. Rob broke from the maul and went over to score the try but unfortunately it wasn’t given, as there was judged to have been an accidental offside in the build up.

The penalty count then proceeded to be added to, eventually getting so high that as the last player to infringe Carl was sent to the sin bin for ten minutes. It wasn’t the best thing that could have happened but Brentwood continued to pressurise and did well even with the one man disadvantage with a scoring opportunity nearly coming as a result of a good up and under by Charlie and a good chase by Sam Fry which forced Chingford into having to try and run from behind their own posts. Eventually the tackle came in that forced Chingford to put the ball down and give Brentwood the 5 metre scrum. However they couldn’t capitalise, which turned out to be the tale of the game.

Going into the last quarter of the match the score was still 0-0 and if we had one of those Opta statistic machines it probably would have shown that Brentwood had 90% of both possession and territory. Joel had come on and was causing real problems for the Chingford defence and Roland was hitting the line from full back well but still Chingford’s defence held strong and Brentwood just couldn’t get over the try line, despite the efforts of both the boys and the spectators who were screaming, shouting and generally making a lot of noise. And that was just Jodie!

When Brentwood started conceding more penalties left, right and centre a draw suddenly started looking very appealing. Chingford worked their way up the pitch and were dangerously close to the Brentwood try line, several good tackles just keeping them out. When a penalty attempt on goal went wide it almost seemed as if Brentwood were going to weather Chingford’s last ditch attack on their try line but the 22 drop out gave Chingford possession straight back again.

And then it happened. The moment every Brentwood supporter was dreading. Chingford scored a superb try. I’m not even entirely sure where the ball came from, a Chingford player broke from the side of the maul just inside the 22 and ran through a stunned Brentwood defender to score. The conversion was nailed. 7-0 to Chingford and not long left.

The Brentwood Boys didn’t give up but with the clock against them it was practically mission impossible. The final whistle blew and Brentwood was knocked out of this season’s Essex Cup. With all the possession and territory it was a game they probably should have won but credit to Chingford who defended as if their lives depended on it and kept Brentwood out. On the plus side as Billy pointed out, at least it didn’t come down to him having to make a kick to win it!