A huge blow came to Eagles in the first set of the game when they lost Dom Stock due to a head blow, fracturing his cheek bone, this seemed to unsettle the Eagles game resulting in some poor tackling that allowed Storms No 8 Adam Tran to score 2 tries in quick succession.
Eagles, now with dented confidence were creating loads of mistakes in attack and not being able to complete sets were spending the majority of the game in defence which was now settling down but being worked hard.
Eagles attack was strengthening and gaining confidence, despite crossing the line 3 times, 2 held up and 1 knocked on it wasn’t until the 33rd minute that Eagles Joe Cripps forced his way over the line to score.
Within 5 mins Eagles captain Wes Newton broke through the Storm defence and placed the ball down between the posts, levelling the score 10-10 at half time.
It was shortly into the second half that a Storm handling error gave Eagles head and feed 10 metres into their own half, Olly Cripps receiving the ball from the base of the scrum split the defence and was able to shrug off the Storm full back and touch down between the posts, 16-10 A great lift for the home team.
The game now was turning into a hard battle between 2 well matched and like minded teams and it wasn’t long before Storms Peter Crook crashed over the line to level the scores 16-16. With much better handling a good penetrating runs the score was turned round once more by Eagles Jamie Williams who was able to muscle over the line and regain the lead 20-16.
Eagles were not allowed to relax as Storm replied with 2 quick tries, 1 created by some deft offloads by hooker Phil Berry to put winger Paul Wojciechowicz over and then score the second himself. 20-28
8 points down and 15 mins to go, Eagles did not let their heads drop and were rewarded when centre Rob Muat scored wide to bring the scores within 4 points 24-28. Eagles Rick Mee eased the tension further when he spotted a gap in the storm defence and cruised through under the posts to level things up, he then got the kick to get a 2 point lead.
With the score at 30-28 and 5 mins to go Eagles were hoping they could hold out and not have a repeat of the Sharks game when they lost out in the final play. They returned the ball from the restart and made Storm play out of their own 10, keeping them in there Storm got frustrated and conceded a penalty on their 10yd line, losing a player to the sin bin weakening their defence. Eagles no 15 Andrew O’Neill collected the ball and with a couple of Storm players hanging off him managed to stretch out an arm and seal the win 36-28
Eagles MoM OllyCripps Storm MoM Adam Tran
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