Manor 4s Get Stuck in Traffic

A simple place to get to you might think, quick hop up the A406, left onto the A13 and left into the Club. A broken down vehicle on the flyover and late arrivals from Seb, Hey Adam & (surprise, surprise) Joliffe meant a staggered arrival with players dribbling onto the pitch in small groups and a less than ideal warm up, ably rushed through by Ralphy.

Manor kicked off through fly half Jake and applied early pressure to the hosts. Breakdown followed scrum followed breakdown in a first 10 minutes where neither side really managed to cross the oppo's 10m line. Ravens best player by far, their 9, broke the stalemate and the ball was sent wide right for a touchdown in the corner. There was a suspicion of foot in touch missed by both the referee and touch judge Harry Applebee but not by Captain h20 who was not well pleased. The Ravens 9 sent a lovely kick through the uprights and we were 7-0 down mid way through the half.

Manor seemed to be struggling to get into the game, caused no doubt by the messy arrival, and a penalty was conceded a few minutes later just 5m from our line. They gave the ball to one of their forwards, no friend of any diet plan he, and Manor tackles being too high on a gentleman of this size led to a relatively easy touch down for Ravens. Another solid conversion from their 9 and we were looking at 14-0.

The usual aggression from the 4s pack this season finally arrived, no doubt it too had struggled on the flyover, and Manor started to get a grip on the game and gain territory and possession seemingly at will. Towards the end of the half we were camped on their 5m line but some poor decision making and a tendency to rush the play led to too many pick and go's into forward traffic when there was acres of space wide to exploit. The ball was eventually sent through the backs to Bobby Grace, maybe the first time he'd touched the ball with anger in the game, and he went over to notch us on the score board. Conversion missed, 14-5 and half time.

We felt we were the better team and were making life hard for ourselves, and this was the basis of the half time rollocking.

We dominated possession and territory again in the second half but again struggled to turn this into points. Another try was scored (by Welchy I think but I could be wrong...) from close range and their forwards began to tire. The conversion was successful this time, 14-12 and an exciting finish was in store.

Desperate for the win Manor threw everything at Ravens, who, to their credit resisted, sometimes outside of the Law as a yellow card for hands in the ruck proved. Their one real attack towards the end of the game was repelled brilliantly by our pack who won a scrum against the head and absolutely blasted Ravens backwards and off the ball. Brilliant to see and a credit to all 8 for that one.

One final Manor attack in the dying seconds of the game was disappointingly unsuccessful. Ravens had a scrum close to their line and subbed their loose head. The guy they brought on was not a prop so it was called uncontested, the ball was kicked away and the game was over. With the dominance of our pack at this point we felt in with a shout here and it was a sad way to end the game.

Final score Ravens 14 Manor 12

There were a few contenders for man of the match, with votes for Ingram, Ralph and Adam Reay but Welchy was the winner, well done mate. Makowski Moment/Billericay Blunder went to Ingram, almost unanimously for deciding to kick the ball after spending the previous 10 minutes tearing a strip off anyone who had tried similar. As he was not present (coincidence?) Chef Martin did the honours. Penalty pints were also awarded to Jonny, Harry A & Bobby Grace who have all scored their first senior tries recently and also to new boy Mark for his debut. A note here also for Waqqash, the younger and smaller (yes...) brother of Tharbish who had a solid game and showed the tackling gene lives on!

Runwell 2s at home next Saturday, let's get back to winning ways!!

Seb...shirts...