7 October 2007
An exhilarating exhibition of 15-man rugby ruthlessly demolished the Upminster
defences on Sunday. Every player in the 22-man squad played their part
and played well, and eight of them shared the 11 tries that were run in.
Upminster started well and Medway had to resist some pressure in the first
few minutes, but in the fourth minute some swift and accurate passing down
the back line moved the ball to wing Tom Bourne, who dived into the corner.
Tom gets his and Medway's second
Bourne scored another straight from the restart. Richard Petch gathered
the kick and drove, before offloading to Richard Verrall who set off on
a trademark weaving 40 metre run. He was finally hauled down five metres
from the line, but Bourne had tracked his movement from the wing, and cut
inside as Verrall popped the ball off the ground for a simple finish. Two
tries on his birthday - just what he wanted! Stewart Stockford converted.
12 - 0 down after 5 minutes was not the start Upminster would have hoped
for, but they then had their best period of the match. Driving down on
Medway's defence they set up camp on Medway's goal line and used their
forwards time and again to try to burst over the line. But Medway's bloody-minded
defence held, and when eventually Upminster made a mistake and the ball
went loose, Medway went straight onto the counter-attack from within metres
of their own try line.
The team surged irresistably upfield, passing and offloading out of tackles,
keeping the ball alive in continuous forward movement, giving the home
defence no chance to re-group. The forwards ran and passed like backs and
the backs rucked and mauled like forwards until with five metres to go
lock Mitch Dalton took a pass from scrum-half Ryan Ellis. Breaking through
two tacklers, he rumbled over the line for his first try for the club and
was immediately surrounded by his backslapping team-mates. Stockford converted
to take the score to 19 - 0.
Paul scores from a quick tap
Medway had their tails up now. An Upminster clearance kick failed to find
touch and the ball was moved rapidly across the back line for Verrall to
run into the corner and around behind the posts. Verrall got his second
only a few minutes later as he took a pass from Stockford at pace and crashed
over the line.
Quick thinking and a fast tapped penalty by Paul Pierce caught the Upminster
defence napping and saw him go under the posts from five metres.
Another ruck close to the Upminster line then produced more quality ball
for Tom Barnes to power over.
Stewart Stockford had converted six of the seven first-half tries, and
the teams changed ends with the score at 47 - 0.
The scoreline allowed Medway to experiment in the second half, with various
players tried out in unfamiliar positions, and playmakers Aman Gill and
Stewart Stockford practising some chip and grubber kicking tactics just
for variety.
But the handling and passing remained top-notch, the ability of every player
to offload out of the tackle was a joy, as was the excellent support play
that that style of rugby requires. Moreover, Medway's performance at the
breakdown was aggressive and effective, in stark contrast to just a few
weeks ago, and the quick ball it produced was used with ruthless precision.
And when Upminster had the ball, they were met by an impenetrable wall
of hostile and hard-hitting tacklers.
Ten minutes into the second half Stockford popped up at a quick lineout
to take the defence by surprise and force a try in the corner.
Sam follows up to score the tenth
A surging run from Bourne on the left wing, and a sidestep and twirl from
Simon Brooks set up a ruck from which Aaron Dimmick picked the ball and
casually stepped over a heap of bodies for the ninth.
A crossfield kick from Gill found Number 8 Paul Pierce on the right wing
who fed James Davies with a diving one-handed pass. Davies was stopped
inches from the line, but popped the ball off the ground for hooker Sam
Levitt to dive in.
Finally, pressure on an Upminster scrummage on their five metre line caused
the ball to run loose in their in-goal, and Aaron Dimmick leapt over to
touch down one-handed and make the final score 67 - 0.
The Upminster team deserve much credit for battling on throughout the match
despite, from their point of view, the dismal scoreline. It so happened
that Medway were in the mood to annihilate whoever opposed them that day,
and had the confidence and freedom of expression to do just that.
