Brentwood U16s 17 Barking U16s 3

Brentwood barking up the right trees… (I apologise for how terrible that is)

From a personal point of view this game started very well, for once your roving reporter had a completely unobstructed view of the entire match, the joys of a balcony meaning no Ian standing in front of me at crucial moments! The added bonus of being on the balcony was also that the icy wind that was whipping around was cancelled out nicely by all the hot air coming from the opposite direction…anyhow, on with the match!

The early play was dominated by Barking in terms of possession but for once Brentwood were defending well and Barking, whilst remaining in the Brentwood half, weren’t making too many inroads. However eventually Barking’s sustained pressure forced Brentwood into conceding a penalty, the option was taken to kick for the posts and no mistake was made, 3-0 Barking.

The vast majority of the first half carried on in this manner, Brentwood at times being their own worst enemy having just got possession and into the Barking half they would concede a mindless penalty and end up back where they started. When another Barking penalty attempt missed wide of the posts Brentwood appeared to get the wake up call they needed and began to get into the game with James and Lewis being prominent in carrying the ball.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, just as Brentwood was starting to get up a head of steam it was half time, the score remaining 3-0 to Barking.

Brentwood though actually managed to carry on from where they left off with a period of concerted pressure and many scrums won against the head. Eventually a maul was formed and crashed over the try line, only for the try to be disallowed for a foot in touch. Brentwood however regained possession and a rumble forward from James and a neat offload saw Jonny (I think) scramble over in the corner. Chris Doble stepped up for the conversion, the chatter on the balcony suggested everyone thought that with the angle he’d probably miss, but to prove us all wrong Chris stepped up and hit probably the sweetest touchline conversion he ever will as it soared straight through the middle of the posts, 7-3 Brentwood.

From then on Brentwood looked determined not to do anything stupid and continued to exert pressure from the restart after Ross “restart magnet” Cant had caught the ball yet again. The forwards were making the hard yards well and the midfield of Adam, Jake and Sam were starting to fizz, some nice creative play by Adam sending Jake bursting through the Barking defence and Sam carrying on the move only to be tackled agonisingly short of the try line.

After a bit of a palaver Brentwood ended up with a 5 metre scrum. Given their dominance in the scrum the ball was won cleanly for Michael at scrum half and was promptly given out to the backs. Using a loop they managed to manufacture an overlap for Jake to go over in the opposite corner to Jonny, the excitement being too much for me and I promptly managed to jab myself in the eye with my purple fluffy novelty pen whilst jumping up and down…back to the good old bic biro next week then…Chris again stepped up for the touch line conversion and again nailed it, 14-3 Brentwood.

The remainder of the match was mainly played in the middle of the park, at times tempers frayed a little but Billy, admittedly, captained well keeping the rest of the team calm when they needed to be. After a while Brentwood won a penalty in the Barking half and opted to kick for the posts, Chris stepped up again and slotted his easiest kick of the day to ensure the win, full time Brentwood 17 Barking 3 and a much better performance than we’ve seen in previous weeks.

A special mention must go to all the unused subs who managed to bite their tongues, quite literally in some cases, after being reprimanded by the ref and never stopped encouraging the boys on the field and also for Ross who it appears is a much better touch judge than any of the Dads since he can actually keep up with play…

Lastly, for anyone who’s interested, Carl was eventually lead from the field after Kevin’s ‘expert’ medical care saw his head bandaged up so much that he couldn’t actually see out of either eye…great credit must go to the Barking boys for waiting to clap him off and he was last seen heading to hospital for some stitching…