Broadstreet RFC 13 - 0 Sheffied RUFC

Sheffield battle hard, but come up dry on a day of great frustration.

Team Selection for Saturday, 8th September 2018

15 Ben Shore
14 Ali Womack
13 Rupert Broadley
12 James Flint
11 Ed Topley
10 Matt Law
9 Steve Depledge

1 Ben Whitney
2 Ianto Jones
3 Dan Rylance
4 Dave Clayden
5 Joe Cooke
6 Tom Womack
7 Angus Hughes
8 Sean Casey
Replacements: -
16 Michael Bradford (FR)
17 Adam Davenport (FR)
18 Will Fairclough

Week two of the new season saw Sheffield away to fellow demotion team Broadstreet, who spent last season finding life as hard as Sheffield did, but in National 2 South. Sheffield travelled without the services of the Hodgson brothers, Andy and Will, leaving Ben Shore to take over at full back for Andy and Matt Law at fly half for Will. Lewis Bowman was also absent from the centre. Rupert Broadley moved from the wing to centre and Ed Topley from last year’s Colts came in on the wing. Michael Bradford remained on the bench and was joined by Adam Davenport and Will Fairclough. The team remain without the services of forwards Jonny France and Dom Parsons, and fly half and centre Rob Conville.

Sheffield kicked off and Broadstreet immediately knocked on. Sheffield lost the ball at the scrum and Broadstreet kicked to clear their lines. Sheffield returned the kick, finding touch. Neither side looked to have a particular dominance in the game and it seemed more than likely that the team that made the lest number of mistakes may take he spoils. Then with ten or so minutes gone, Broadstreet turned the ball over to Sheffield who proceeded to give the advantage back with a knock on just outside the Sheffield 22. Broadstreet took full advantage from the resulting scrum, moving the ball to their right and finding Sheffield’s defence all at sea for full back Chris Eaton to cross the line and find his way in field a few metres. Fly half Chris Hodgson added the conversion and Broadstreet led by 7 points to nil after 11 minutes.

Sheffield were struggling at both Lineout and scrum and Broadstreet continued to press the advantage of more than their fair share of possession from Sheffield’s set piece. Hence after 21 minutes a scrum just outside Sheffield’s 22 saw Broadstreet awarded a penalty and Broadstreet’s Chris Hodson obliged with the 3 points to give the home team a 10 point to nil lead. Sheffield appeared to up their game a little, but were still unable to put points on the board, and as is oft the case, Broadstreet came back just before half time with a penalty shot at goal for Chris Hodgson when Ben Shore was caught in possession on his own 22. Happily, the kick was wide of the mark and the half finished with no addition to the score.

The second half saw Sheffield more in contention, but again a score kept eluding them and eventually Broadstreet once again took advantage when they were awarded a penalty after 61 minutes, which Chris Hodgson despatched to move the lead out to 13 points to nil. Then with 70 minutes on the clock, Chris Hodgson was yellow carded for s professional foul. Sheffield had made a break near halfway and chipped over the Broadstreet defence, and Hodgson was guilty of pulling the advancing kicked back and taking him down. The result was a long period of Sheffield on the attack and Broadstreet defending and holding on desperately. Sheffield battered away at the Broadstreet line, but he defence held firm, and unfortunately Sheffield’ forwards eventually succumbed to giving penalty away on Broadstreet’s line with less than w minutes to play and the opportunity had slipped away. Broadstreet kicked to touch, secured the line out and stuck the ball firmly up their jerseys until the referee called time, whence they kicked out to end the match.

Sheffield will be very disappointed with this result and the manner of their not being able to register a score.

Scoring: -

Time	Scorer	Type of Score	Team	Score		Score
Minutes				Home		Away
				Team		Team
1st Half
11	Chris Eaton (15)	Try (1)	Broadstreet RFC	5	-	0
	Chris Hodgson (10)	Conversion (1)	Broadstreet RFC	7	-	0
21	Chris Hodgson (10)	Penalty (1)	Broadstreet RFC	10	-	0
			Half Time: -	10	-	0
2nd Half
61	Chris Hodgson (10)	Penalty (2)	Broadstreet RFC	13	-	0
			Full Time	13	-	0