Saturday 6 November 2010
Stroud & District Combination Junior Cup, First Round
Too strong, too fast
Minety 2nd XV 14 pts – Stroud Nomads 59 pts
Stroud Nomads were too strong and fast for Minety seconds in this enjoyable but one-sided game. Outpaced and often outplayed, the village team nevertheless stuck manfully to their task and made sure that the visitors didn’t have everything their own way.
Playing downhill in the first half, Nomads looked dangerous every time they got the ball and were soon piling up points. In the first half hour, they ran in five tries, the last scored straight from the restart. Kicking consistently, they only missed one conversion, giving them a 33-point lead.
The home side tackled doggedly but could do little to stem the tide until a chip ahead finally put the visitors on the back foot. Stroud managed to ground the ball behind their own line for a drop-out 22, but Minety kept coming and when the visitors were penalised for a shoulder charge, the ball was flipped to flyhalf Andy Edwards, who stepped inside his man to get within a metre of a score. Stroud wrenched the ball free and scooped it back over their own line but Minety scrumhalf Andy Brown pounced on it to claim a try under the posts, giving Edwards an easy conversion.
Injury forced Minety prop Steve Murray to leave the field at the break, leading to uncontested scrums in the second half.
Stroud began brightly, running in an uphill try before five minutes had gone, but Minety responded with their best period of play, with Edwards kicking cannily from hand to pen Stroud back into their own half.
Having come on at half-time, Luke Radcliffe seemed to make light of the niggling injury which had been troubling him. After several good runs, he made what seemed like a decisive break, being finally brought down barely a metre from the try line. Unfortunately, he was injured in the tackle and retired hurt.
His place was taken by Tim Vaughan, who broke from 30 metres out to sprint in for a try which Edwards again converted. When he attempted to repeat the feat, however, the referee red carded him from the field for foul play.
Down to 14 men, Minety were unable to maintain their grip on the game and Stroud, exploiting the automatic overlap, were soon romping away again. A break up the left touchline by their winger and another by their scrumhalf from half way both led to tries before the visitors closed the game with a move from a lineout just inside the home team’s half. They ran in the try and kicked the conversion to make it 14-59 at the death.
Dave Clutterbuck and Rob Higgins bagged a brace of tries apiece for Stroud. The other try scorers for the Nomads were Ian Bushell, Dan Gordon, Callum Gibbs, Harry Phillips and Chris Ashmead.
This Saturday, Minety seconds return to league action with a home game against their counterparts from Pewsey Vale.
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