Fullerians 20 Brentwood 26....

Fullerians 20 Brentwood 26
Following the long Christmas and New Year break, it was back to league business last Saturday as Brentwood, 2nd in the table, travelled to Fullerians a team new to level 6 rugby this season. A difficult game was anticipated, the home side have a very strong pack of forwards, a handful to deal with at the best of times, a task made even more difficult last Saturday, as Brentwood, due to injuries and suspensions took the field with a patched together 2nd row pairing of the veteran Tom King, and Ben Amato normally a back row forward.
Under leaden skies Brentwood kicked off, and from the start were put under pressure by an enthusiastic home side, looking to avenge the 54 -5 defeat, they suffered in the earlier fixture between these two sides last September, and it was no surprise when after 8 minutes Brentwood found themselves trailing by 7 points after the Fullerians forwards had driven over the Brentwood line to score a try which was converted.
Shortly after this, Brentwood pounced on a loose ball in their own 22, feed to the excellent Josh Stannard, who broke through 2 tackles, raced the length of the pitch and scored an outstanding try which, unfortunately was not converted.
The rest of the half settled into a predictable pattern with the home side having the advantage at scrums and line outs, and Brentwood tackling well and gaining position from broken play, Fullerians did increase their lead to 10 -5 when they slotted over a penalty after 23 minutes, but it was Brentwood who lead at half time 12-5, as they scored in the final minute a well worked try, Stannard broke through the home sides defence and fed hooker Jack Richards who ran in under the posts, to give Cappaert, the simplest of conversions.
The 2nd half saw the visitors soaking up an awful lot of pressure, but some superb tackling kept Fullerians at bay, as head coach Steve Killington used his bench well bringing on fresh legs in the backs with the introduction of Charlie Chambers and Henry Bird, and Leo Friswell in to the pack, and slowly but surely with Charlie Chambers sending some deep kicks into Fullerians territory the away side began to dominate play, and scored two further tries, firstly when young winger Ed Hornby raced away to score after being put in by the majestic Stannard who after receiving a fine pass from Cappaert, left his opposite number for dead before putting the young winger away, and when Charlie Chambers, took a quick penalty and dived over to score, both tries where converted the former by Cappaert and the latter by Bird. All the home side managed to score during this period was a penalty, and with 10 minutes to go Brentwood lead by 26 – 13.
Fullerians dominated the final period, and after Brentwood had Tom Simpson yellow carded with only 5 minutes left found themselves camped on their own line and under tremendous pressure, the final play of the game saw Fullerians awarded and penalty try which was converted leaving Brentwood victorious by 26 – 20 , having scored 4 tries and thus earning a bonus point.
All in all a good day for Brentwood, some good performances all round, including some excellent runs from Louie Payne, and it was great to see the ageless James Metcalfe making one of his rare appearances at 1st team level