Brentwood U16 7 Hertford U16 7

The tale of the AWOL match reporter

On a cold frosty morning, in a land far away… (Brentwood in fact) A brave, injured, man stepped up (with a pink, fluffy, sparkly pencil may I add?) to take over the match reporting duties from an absentee sister of his.

With kick-off being delayed for 10 minutes, due to the top end of pitch 4 being in the shade and not fully defrosted, I had a moment or two to fully think about what I had gotten myself into, needless to say I didn’t like it!

However once the game got underway I soon forgot about ones own problems and started to think about Brentwood’s. With Mikey ‘Hardcore’ D playing fly half for the second consecutive week due to not one, but two absent fly half’s, the forwards felt it their duty to stick it up their shirts and maul it, however this didn’t really go to plan due to the numerous times the ball was lost in contact and flung to Hertford’s fly half to play aerial ping-pong with the Brentwood back three. There was however small periods of pressure from Brentwood into the Hertford twenty-two metre area but Brentwood never looked like converting pressure to points as the ball was again coughed up in contact or silly penalty’s were given away causing loss of possession and territory. It was summed up in a sentence of a near by spectator, ‘Lack of composure.’ I personally feel he hit the nail on the head with that. When the first half drew to a close, neither team had scored or had even looked like scoring.

The Brentwood half time talk was kept short and sweet, ‘Stop giving the ball away in contact’ and ‘Go and play some rugby’ featuring a few times. It was then followed by four changes, at hooker, one second row, and one wing and at scrum half. First half score: 0-0

With the start of the second half, came a good start from Hertford with them playing much better rugby and on a lot of occasions challenging the Brentwood defence. Again silly mistakes and turnovers were costing Brentwood of possession and territory badly. Spectators were starting to realise how bad it was, when Messiah decided to ring the Samaritans it then continued to get worse as the Samaritan hung up in a fit of depression!! A clever kick through from Hertford however caught Brentwood napping but Roland pounced on the ball as it rolled over the try line, 22 drop-out Brentwood. While waiting around for the ball to be kicked I picked up a couple of quotes from yet more nearby spectators. The following 3 being my favourite:

‘Well take the positives from this Ian, it can’t go much worse next week, can it?’ – John Roberts

‘Just one mistake after another aint it?’ – Swampy

‘What the hell is wrong with your team? Were they all out on the lash last night?’ – I wish we had an excuse…

The 22 drop out was followed by pressure from Hertford until Brentwood forced a turnover and cleared their lines. Billy did well, as he had been all game, and stole yet another lineout which was followed by another big run from James causing a 30 metre gain, and ended when Brentwood decided to lose the ball in contact again. Brentwood then managed to force a turnover and Stand in fly half Mikey D cleverly called a move which caused a scoring opportunity however Hertford’s cover defence was good and Roland was turned over, from this a Hertford player was given a big open blindside which he thumped the ball down for faster players to chase, where by a mad scramble for the ball ensued ending with Hertford being stopped short of the line, the Hertford backline then called a clever cross field kick which was happily finished well by the left winger. The conversion, from 5 metres in, a very difficult kick made to look easy. 7-0 Hertford.

From the restart however Brentwood appeared to be raring to go, as some very fast follow up play ended in Pratley making a huge tackle and Brentwood regaining possession, however the referee stopped play for the injury causing some dismay among the home supporters, the general consensus being that if there isn’t a head injury or a break in play the game shouldn’t be stopped for injury. The scrum was awarded to Brentwood in the middle of the pitch just outside the 22m and Brentwood applied full pressure with numerous waves of attack with two tries being held up before Pratley eventually crashed his was over the line. The score 7-5, with the conversion, the last play of the game, from Chris Doble (stand in tee kicker) to come. With the obvious pressure mounting on Chris, he did exceedingly well to slot the conversion with almost ease. Final score: 7-7. Brentwood just managing to scrape a draw from the clutches of defeat.

A quick mention about Ross Dibben who came on at half time and hit every single Line out throw of the second half giving Brentwood a lot more possession. Also mentions to Billy who had a cracking game in the lose, making lots of tackles and winning lots of ball from Hertford’s line out.

By William Bassenger