Erith vs Charlton Park 3rds (away)
Cloudy day, soft touch of rain and a soft rugby pitch, perfect for a good game of forwards rugby.
From the first blow of the whistle, both teams aggressively went at each other, on attack and defence. Erith holding strong against the oppositions hard running lines, even though their scrum half zipped through a few times but was still tackled by Erith’s wingers and full back.
A few times Erith got into Charlton park’s half, but loose the ball in contact due to slippery conditions. Charlton park score the first try. Erith’s number 10 Matt, played really well after being out for almost two years, but takes a bad knock to the ankle and is replaced by Simon. Shortly after getting onto the pitch Simon executes a practised move from training; chips the ball behind Charlton parks rush defence, with the ball bouncing oddly and closely towards out of play, Jordan speeds through and collects to score Erith’s first try.
And a big thank you to James Palmer for coaching us on behalf of Robin.
With a try to each team, the game turns into struggle for possession and territory. The backs who have all not been playing rugby or together for a long time, Ronnie, Josh, Adam, Sherrif, Jordan, Simon and Matt chased kicks and made numerous tackles. With all the backs getting stuck in when required at the rucks to secure ball out wide and especially on scramble defence.
Erith get a scrum close to Charlton parks try line in the middle of the pitch, they hold steady, Kieran (8), picks up and goes left, pops the ball to Adam in the backs who then passes to Brad (9 and Captain), skims past 3 players and manages to off-load while being tackled. Josh catches the ball and powers over for Erith’s second try.
With Shane playing at open side flanker, for the first time, he done exceptionally well, in the line outs and even stealing one from the opposition, causing a few turn overs, disrupting the oppositions ball at the break downs and slowing Charlton park down, giving Erith more time to form their defensive line. With Kieran a go to man for when hard yards to be made are expected, and Aron (2) starting to do same. The entire forward pack worked hard to make ground in pods and secure ball and turn overs at the break down.
End result was two tries to each side, with Charlton park taking the lead by kicking both conversions over.
10 – 14 to Charlton Park as deserved winners for their own industrial hard work and effort on defence.
The Captain, Brad, felt the entire team has played it’s best game so far in the past two seasons, and as such felt that every player was deserving of man of the match.