A good day at The Office as XV pick up Bonus Point 'W' at Stafford

For those who were able to follow Camp Hill to Stafford on Saturday they were treated as always to a warm and friendly welcome and particularly so as it was “apparently” a rare gathering of their vice Presidents for an excellent lunch and with the hopes of a positive outcome in the High Court next January we could very soon be visiting a new facility almost twenty years in the making.

One could be forgiven for thinking such hospitality had spilled over to their players as no sooner had the game got underway, than Camp’s found themselves five points up due to Simon “Barney” Edwards bludgeoning his way over for a try he only narrowly failed to convert. The first fifteen minutes belonged mainly to Camp Hill and it was only down to the odd handling error that prevented them from gaining a significant advantage and when the pressure of the driving forwards allowed our skipper Mark Newton to claim the touchdown and again Barney was to fall short with the conversion attempt. But the visitors had a cushion of 10 points to nil.

At this point Stafford began to find their feet and with a further five minute having passed posted their first score of the afternoon with a well penatly following an infringement by Camp’s forwards making the score line 3 – 10.

By now the game had developed more clearly into a “two sided” affair with constant sorties into each other’s territory and at around 25 minutes we saw a Simon Edwards drop goal to further cement our lead.

At around the half hour following many lectures to both skippers as to infringements in his eyes being somewhat “cynical” the referee awarded our skipper with a yellow card which saw us play the last part of the half with fourteen men and such advantage was well taken by Stafford who managed a converted try which saw the half time score at a somewhat closer than anticipated twenty five minutes earlier of Stafford 10 – Camp hill 13.

Just prior to the interval Camp’s were to lose the thorn in the opposition’s side that is Harry Cunningham who managed to put his chin onto the stud of someone’s boot and despite the best efforts of Edwin was to play no further part that afternoon.

The second half saw both sides competing for supremacy with the ever present threat from Stafford’s three quarter line trying to breach Camp Hill’s dogged defence and following pressure of their own, dog was again present in the form of Daniel O’Grady to take the score away from Stafford with a try converted by Simon Edwards to widen the margin to a healthier 10 points to 20 in our favour.

Things got no better for Stafford for with barely another five minutes gone a turnover ball was fed out to Robert Freeman who thwarted the efforts of at least three Stafford players to stop his progress to cross their line and with the conversion a mere formality for Barney the game, albeit still with some twenty odd minutes still on the clock looked beyond Stafford with a score of Stafford 10 points to Camp Hill’s 27.

An uncharacteristic knock on from the resulting kick off saw Stafford’s forwards drive to and indeed over out try line for an immediate riposte and whilst the resultant conversion sailed by a score of Stafford 15 to Camp Hill’s 27 suddenly looked back in reach.

What appeared to be an age of to and fro rugby was once again broken by a clever kick ahead by Simon “Barney” Edwards who it has to be said somewhat “bossed” the game at various crucial moments and with Mathew Clarke’s clever collection and off load to the ever present Rob Hunt to touch down in the shadow of the Stafford posts it was again left to Simon Edwards (pic) to round off proceedings with a conversion to leave the final score that of Stafford 15 points to Camp Hill’s 34.

Next week we play host to the league leaders Stourbridge Lions who top the league just one point above Camp Hill

Beech House, Solihull Man of The Match - Simon Edwards (pic)