MATCH DAY 7 - TRING

What a difference a week makes… on an overcast, firm under foot day and a wind running towards the tennis courts… with CS Stags defending the tennis courts end from the kick-off. The first half saw a lot of toing and froing by both sides, neither one dominating. Tring scoring a try and kicking their opportunities with the wind saw CSStags1863 0-13 down, before a response came.

From a line out in our half, James Barnes (9) picked up a palm back and set the back line moving … with an injection of pace and intensity the ball came back to Freddie Cracknell (15) who outpaced everyone pushing a grubber kick through for Dafydd Rees (11) to score 5 metres in from touch – 5 - 13. The half closed out at 5 -16.

We turn around, the wind is still there…. CSStags1863 came out for the second half got straight into their stride by disrupting Tring with a kick-off return by John Hargreaves (12) that saw us return the ball 50 metres getting into the Tring 22…. CSStags1863 showed some great interplay and offloading pulling Tring’s defence in different directions… a strong spell… following a squirted ball out of the scrum, the ball was moved down the back line allowing Dafydd Rees (11) to score in the corner – 10 -15. Momentum was with us…. It moved further in our favour when the Tring second row (4) was sent off for an over the horizontal tackle and landing it on our players head…. As you can imagine the response from CSStags1863 resulted in a yellow.

The clock was running, and we conceded a further penalty which pushed the score to 10 -16. Back to a full complement meant we picked up the tempo, as did Tring in defence. Our final score came from a solid scrum ball, with the ball being moved down the line, multiple line breaks and Dafydd Rees again going over in the corner – 15 – 16. We had 4 minutes to go but were unable to score … the match closed out at 15 - 16.

Well, that was a far more comfortable watch then last week, a lot more cohesion, competitive up front and our backs cutting through… coming together….

PLAYER OF THE MATCH – Miguel Meirium (nos.1) as chosen by Chris Swann (DoR) & Grant Hathaway (Head Coach) for his performance at set pieces, out scrummaging his opposite number.

Other performances highlighted by Chris & Grant, coming from Daffyd Rees - 11 (try hattrick), Fred Cracknell -15 & Paz Shreshta -14 for backfield dominance and attacking flair, Angus Low -5 and Kyle Coulter – 4 for lineout disruption and security and Zinny Norman - 7 for turnovers.