Brentwood U15s 22 Woodford U15s 22

A ferocious draw…

The Brentwood boys were awake straight from the off, perhaps slightly disconcerting but the kick off was an hour later than usual! The forwards surged forward powerfully with notable metres made by Will Bassenger and Chris Doble. After a sustained period of the forwards battering the Woodford defence Chris Doble crashed over. Adam narrowly missed the conversion, 5-0 Brentwood.

Straight after though the good work was undone as missed tackles from the restart forced Brentwood into conceding a penalty straight in front of the posts. Woodford opted for the kick, which was successful, 5-3 to Brentwood.

The next restart saw another monster hit from Sam Morgan leaving the Woodford player temporarily winded. Sam’s huge hits count so far this season – 3 in 2 games. The Brentwood forwards kept piling on the pressure but tactical thinking wasn’t quite there, as when the ball maybe should have gone wide it didn’t. Although Brentwood had the majority of possession, when Woodford did get the ball their backs looked extremely dangerous, causing chaos amongst the Brentwood defence on the counter attack.

More crashing and driving, mainly from the forwards got Brentwood back into the Woodford 22 and then a signature strong break from Jake released the backs for probably the first time in the match with Sam Fry going over in the corner. The conversion was again narrowly missed, 10-3 to Brentwood.

The rest of the half belonged to Woodford with their ability to keep the ball alive stretching the Brentwood defence, a scrambling tackle from Sam Fry and then another by Jordan Hill denying them a try on two occasions. After waves and waves of Woodford attack and more and more desperate defence from Brentwood the pressure finally told and Woodford went over in the corner. A superb conversion levelled the scores at 10 all and the half time whistle was blown.

The second half started well. Adam was pulling the strings at fly half and then a clever kick from him resulted in a Woodford knock on and a scrum to Brentwood. The forwards turned on the pressure and won a penalty. It was tapped to Sam Morgan, who after handing off a couple of defenders sent the ball wide. It reached Sam Fry for probably only his second touch of the game and in a small amount of space he threw a dummy that the Woodford defence bought, stepped off his right foot and whizzed through the gap to score near the corner. Adam kicked a great conversion. 17-10 to Brentwood.

Following this some handbags broke out between Carl and his opposite number, although it was nothing major the game turned into a slight farce for five minutes as both were given what was effectively half a yellow card but neither team were allowed to bring on replacement props, so scrums became uncontested. Typically there were many scrums in this five-minute period.

Sam Morgan made yet more metres by doing his action man impression again, running, getting tackled, rolling over, continuing running, rolling…a future career with the SAS maybe?

Despite Sam’s best action man efforts, Woodford won the ball back and through keeping the ball alive and off the ground and involving the backs, possibly something Brentwood needs to learn from, they scored a fabulous try. The conversion was missed leaving Brentwood with a two point lead, 17-15.

The scoring of this try saw Woodford seemingly go up a gear, their backs running rampant and going in for another try. This time it was converted, 17-22 to Woodford and 5 minutes remaining. Brentwood though were not about to give up, they dug deep for one last big push.

A big forward effort saw a try held up and from the resulting scrum Chris Doble took the ball off the back. Although he was bashed back by ferocious Woodford defence he retained possession and James Paton smashed over to score a last gasp try. The scores were now level, 22 all, and with Adam off the field, up stepped Chris Doble to take the conversion. The Woodford players held their breath, he lined it up and…missed. Not to worry Chris, Billy would have hit the corner flag! The final whistle went, the result a 22 all draw. A great game and a fair result for two equally as committed and ferociously determined teams.