4 November 2007
The U16s' rollercoaster season was on the downslope on Sunday as the Medway
team put in a poor performance and Woodford took full advantage. On an
off-form day, when some players seemed to have other things on their minds,
Medway's tackling was dire against a big and confident side who played
as a team from front to back. Woodford were strong in the forwards, disrupting
Medway's pack at every scrum, and well-drilled in the backs where rehearsed
moves were carried out with precision and speed.
Medway, on the other hand and in stark contrast to the Blackheath game,
were ragged up-front. In the first half, scrum-half Ryan Ellis had a torrid
time as the pack was pushed backwards and he was harried constantly by
his opposite number. He rarely got the ball away cleanly, and the backs
had to live off scraps. Medway again suffered at the line-out from inaccurate
throwing, so set-pieces generally were disaster areas.
Woodford went ahead after five minutes. The Medway goal-line was crossed
and the ball was held up, but from the resulting scrum the Woodford scrum-half
sniped from the base and went over.
Five minutes later and Woodford were further ahead, after Medway's defence evaporated
in front of Woodford's centre, who ran through the missed tackles to score. Woodford's
kicker was having a bad day and missed both conversions.
The home side then woke up for ten minutes and started to put some pressure on
Woodford's defence without ever looking like reaching their best. They scored
when Richard Verrall took a tapped penalty and drove through from five metres,
and Stewart Stockford converted.
But Woodford struck back immediately with a training ground move at a lineout
on Medway's five-metre line. The ball was taken at the front and a player from
the back of the line took the ball at speed and ran round the front. He was stopped
by the blindside winger, Tom Bourne, but an offload inside to a supporting player
produced the score.
Just before half-time Medway scored again and almost identically to their first.
This time Verrall's driving run was stopped a metre out, but Richard Petch was
following up and twisted out of a tackle to touch down. Stockford slotted the
conversion, and Medway went into half-time only a point behind at 14 - 15.
Woodford started the second-half strongly and looked likely to score, but just
as the pressure produced an overlap, Jamie Chapman intercepted and ran the 90
metres to the posts at the other end of the pitch. The Woodford coaches seemed
to think this was lucky, not knowing that Jamie's anticipation in these situations
gives him three or four interception tries every year. Stockford converted again,
Medway had the lead for the first time, and for a short while looked as if they
might extend it. Had Joe Jelfs, following up another Verrall run, not been stopped
a foot short of the line, Medway might finally have got into gear and killed
the game.
But the attempt failed, the home side returned to their lacklustre ways, and
Woodford finished the stronger. A well-worked back move with two loops put one
of their centres into the corner and took them to within a point at 21 - 20.
Finally they tried the same lineout move that had worked in the first half. Medway
stopped it this time, but from the resulting ruck Woodford's backs found a gap
in the defense and Woodford's kicker got his first conversion of the day to make
the final score 21 - 27.
