Woodford 2s vs Chingford
Woodford 19 - Chingford 20
Sat 17 March 2007
It was another bright day at the Highams for what would prove to be a testing day for the second team. After a series of walkovers today would be different playing a strong Chingford team who had won convincingly earlier on in the season at their patch.
The game kicked off and after a few plays in which the Woodsman kept possession we soon broke through the strong Chingford pack. With the Chingford backs looking like they did not want to tackle we ran in the early first try. This would prove to be our undoing however. For the first half Woodford were adamant to play their “spanghero” style of rugby but with Chingford staying strong and keeping to their “up the jumper” style of play Woodford were finding it hard to keep possession. With the contrast in styles the game became very scrappy with Woodford being second best in most break down situations. The referee was obviously a fan of the slower game allowing the tackled player an absolute age to release the ball. This not only hindered our quick game preventing, Pat and Red from at least three completely clear turnovers, but also gave Chingford some easy penalties from the Woodsman having “hands in”. a very scrappy first half ended with Woodford 12-10 up.
Woodford came out in the second half keen to right their wrongs. Chingford scored almost instantly to take a deserved lead for the first time in the contest. From here Woodford upped their game and began to grind down Chingford by beating them at their own game. Another score from Woodford meant it was now 19-15 to the home side. The Woodford backline seemed to be exposed at times and Chingford undid any good work by the home side by making the most on any errors by the Woodsman. Chingford broke from in their on half but were tackled just in Woodford’s 22. From the resulting pressure of the away side getting in behind the home defence they were awarded a penalty as the home side were deemed to have hands in, in yet another ruck situation. From the resulting plays Chingford scored in the corner after some great defensive work from Woodford. This now put Chingford in the lead 20-19 with under 5 minutes left on the clock. From the kick off Chingford set up a maul situation, aware that time was on their side. Woodford managed to turn over the ball but were not in range of the drop goal and for the first time in the game the Chingford defence was solid in shutting out any Woodford attack.
The whistle blew with home side wondering just how we lost. Credit must go to Chingford who were superb at playing to their strengths and took all two points in what was the last league game of the season against a lacklustre Woodford second team. A mention should also go to Red and Pat who’s work rate around the park was superb and intuition in break down situations did not go un-noticed (except by the man in the middle). A special thanks to Millard and Jordan who both stepped in at late notice to replace the injured Simo. It’s up to the second team now to pick themselves up and concentrate on the cup as this enthralling season comes to a close.
Team; Sean, George, Darren, Red, Dan, Sam, Luke, Pat, Jamie, Ben, Eric, James, Simo (Millard 40)(Jordan 50), Blake and Matt.
