Aston Old Edwardians RFC (30) v Market Drayton RFC (14)

Aston Old Edwardians 1st XV .v. Market Drayton 1st XV
21/11/2015
15 – Mustapha Ndaye
14 – Chris Porter
13 – Tom Nener (Capt.)
12 – Sean Sandford
11- Sam Massey
10 – David Roberts
9 – Ian Lyons
8 – Ethan Channer
7- Gareth Given
6- Liam Handy
5- Nick Whitemore
4-Alex Hanley
3-Darren Hamilton
2- Darren Morris
1-Julius Hunt
Replacements – Tyrell Galloway ; Adam Baldock; Ray Brown

On a bitterly cold afternoon with a gale force Arctic wind Aston elected to play with the slope of Sunnybank Avenue and the wind behind them. This proved to be an astute decision as the Aston lads quickly got into gear and from the kick off drove deep down the right hand side of the pitch using the pace of Hunt, Channer and Whiteman to create panic in the Market Drayton defence. Within 3 minutes there was a penalty awarded for killing the ball and with that wind there was no way Ian Lyons was going to miss the 3-0 lead. Within a minute there was an action replay but this time the ball wasn’t illegally killed and was spun out to the backs. Sean Sandford showed why he had got the late call to the first team by bursting past some indifferent tackles to go over near the posts. Aston were scenting blood at 8 - 0. Another high kick off was taken cleanly by Alex Henley and Aston put in a number of punishing drives working the blind side well. Suddenly, there was the nightmare sight for Market Drayton of Julius Hunt pounding at full pace down the right bursting through a number of tackles and diving over for a magnificent try. The conversion was missed but Market Drayton looked a little shell-shocked to be trailing 13 – 0. There was a penalty award against Aston at this point which the Drayton outside half put over against the wind which was an excellent feat. It was encouraging to note that despite the conditions, the lineout was functioning well with Gareth Given causing the bigger opposition all sorts of problems jumping at number 2. This was useful as Dave Roberts’ line kicking was immaculate with some 60 metre kicks really pinning down the visitors. Another series of drives led well by Whiteman resulted in a kick to the open side, wide defence. Mustapha Ndaye and Sam Massey demonstrated exactly why these lost causes should be followed up as they chased, tackled the full back and winger and popped out the ball on the Aston side of the maul just as Sean Sandford arrived. The centre picked up the rolling ball and smartly nipped around the narrow side and cruised in from 25 metres to go round to the posts for his second try. Once more Lyons obliged to give Aston a 20 pts to 3 lead. This was followed up with another penalty to make the half time score 23 -3 to Aston.
Aston resumed in a confident fashion after the break but failed to realise that facing this wind would have a dramatic impact upon the ability of passes to carry to men. The next quarter saw pass after pass dropped by Aston players who would normally exploit the possession that they were able to get. It was during this quarter that the referee suddenly decided that Aston were the side committing most fouls at the breakdown and awarded penalty after penalty. Market Drayton were lifted by this and kicked two of these, one of which was a monster from 40 metres out on the right. This pulled the score back to 23 – 9 and the only consolation for Aston was that every time Market Drayton tried to run ball from a penalty using forwards as a battering ram, Gareth Given put his body on the line with repeated one on one tackles which stopped the momentum and lifted the spirit of his team. Eventually the forwards resumed putting in a shift with a great scrum position in the opposition 22’. After a number of injuries, Nick Whiteman took over at No8 and Market Drayton wheeled clockwise. This enabled Whiteman to pick up and attack the open side, bludgeoning his way over for a brutal try to seal the game. Ian Lyons added the dressing to this and Aston had hit the 30 mark and a bonus point. There were further attacks by the Aston boys with Nener combining well with Ndaye and Chris Porter on several occasions and with what should have been the try of the game disallowed for a forward pass to Baldock that only one person saw. A flurry of penalty awards saw Market Drayton score a deserved try at the end for the only continuity they managed in this match to finish 30 – 14. This was a very encouraging performance with Gareth Given awarded man of the match for his non-stop performance throughout the game.