Brentwood U17s 15 Colchester Colts 7

A tale of two halves…

On a balmy, almost Mediterranean, and most certainly uncharacteristic March day Brentwood assembled themselves at Colchester where all any one could remember of the last time we’d played there was a horrendous hail storm…fortunately there appeared to be no chance of a repeat!

Brentwood picked up where’d they left off last week with a strong start and aggressive defending, an absolutely bone crunching tackle from Sam Fry summing it all up quite nicely. Brentwood were competing well on the floor and winning their fair share of turnovers and eventually their reward came with a lineout on Colchester’s 22. Billy took the ball at the front of the lineout and it was out to the backs where Jake and then Matt Smith crashed it up the middle to get good go forward momentum. The forwards decided to batter on further themselves, getting to within a few metres out and from the base of the ruck Elliot took it upon himself to pirouette round the fringe and score the try. Less of the ballet moves please…Charlie knocked the conversion over, 7-0 Brentwood and a good start.

Brentwood were playing some almost, dare I say it, excellent rugby what with Charlie slicing through the defence and throwing outrageous dummies, Matt Smith hitting the line well from full back and the forwards securing quick ball and were always looking like threatening to score. Unfortunately there was a slight clinical edge missing to Brentwood’s play and they just weren’t quite getting the scores they deserved.

However it did feel as though the try had to come at some point and eventually it did. After some Fijian goose stepping/phantom fence jumping antics from Matt Smith which raised a chuckle on the touch line Brentwood worked their way upfield to eventually gain a scrum. Brentwood’s usual scrum time option is to crash off the back so it was almost bizarre to see it swung out to the backs right from the off. They were obviously playing well enough that the forwards half trusted them…Fortunately their trust was rewarded when Brentwood made absolute mincemeat of Colchester’s defence as the ball went through the hands of Elliot, past the dummy line of Sam Fry, to Charlie who made the break and offloaded to Jonny who in turn steamed up the wing to throw a glorious inside pass to put Matt Smith over for the try. The conversion missed but the try was so good that most people were too busy picking their jaws up off the floor to realise. 12-0 Brentwood.

Half time soon followed and whilst Brentwood should have scored more points the general touchline consensus was that signs were encouraging.

Of course we were all wrong. The restart catcher went AWOL and before Brentwood knew it they were standing under their own posts with the conversion attempt flying over their heads, Colchester having capitalised well on what was probably their first real chance of the game. 12-7 Brentwood.

Play was not any where near as cohesive as it had been in the first half and Brentwood at one point had almost appeared to have hit self destruct, the defensive line being so non-existent at times that you probably could have driven a double decker bus through some of the gaps…But Brentwood were doing quite well to just about hold out with the forwards, notably (as much as this really sincerely pains me to say) Billy, nicking crucial ball on the floor.

Brentwood finally managed to pull themselves together enough to put on a small period of pressure which ending up earning them a penalty directly in front of the posts just outside the 22. Despite the calls of kick for touch from the touchline Brentwood opted to do the sensible thing and ignore said calls and put themselves two scores clear. Very wise. Charlie knocked the penalty over, 15-7 Brentwood.

This looked to have been a very clever decision not soon after when Colchester broke and appeared to be heading under the posts until Sam Fry appeared and managed to make a great last ditch tackle to prevent the try being scored. Brentwood turned the ball over and hoofed it off the park which turned out to be full time in what was, luckily for Brentwood, a very short half!

Keith summed it up nicely as the end with his short but sweet analysis of this being “a typical Brentwood performance; at times great, at times awful.” Well here’s hoping that it’s more of the great and less of the awful at Ruislip next week!

Lastly, a swift mention to Colchester’s abusive barman. There is nothing pretentious about orange and passionfruit J20s, I don’t drink them at flashy night clubs and our rugby club does in fact sell them. There is also nothing wrong with my wellies, need a bit of glamour on the touchline! I warned him he’d feel the wrath of my pen…