St Marys Old Boys Match Report

Frampton welcomed near neighbours St Marys Old Boys to the Stade de Fram on Saturday afternoon for their second home match of the season. The weather was a complete contrast to the previous week; being overcast with a strong wind blowing straight down the pitch. Fortunately the heavy showers of the morning had abated.

From the start St Marys enjoyed the majority of possession, forcing Frampton to defend for long periods. Despite this, Frampton defended manfully and rarely looked threatened. When Frampton did get their hands on the ball, they looked dangerous. After 15 minutes Frampton thought that they had taken the lead with a well worked “try” by winger Alex Stell, only for the final pass to have been ruled forward by the assistant referee. Not to be disappointed, Frampton continued to impress with the ball in hand, but probably left at least two further scores out on the pitch.

Frampton hooker Tim Child was sent to the sin bin for an illegal clear out at a ruck. Rather than being hampered by going one man down, Frampton stepped up their intensity and scored two very good long range tries by Russ Taylor and Harry Blakes. Both tries were well converted by Lewis Oakley with excellent kicks in tricky conditions. Frampton were restored to fifteen men, but there were no further scores before half time with Frampton leading 14 points to nil.

The general consensus amongst the intelligentsia on the touchline was that Frampton would have to up their game to be able to take the game away from St Marys, who would have the advantage of the wind behind them in the second half. These thoughts were swiftly dispelled when Frampton scored two very quick tries within the first five minutes of the half through Brandon Ball and Tom Bowen-Hall to give Frampton a very early try scoring bonus point. Both tries were converted by Oakley with good kicks into the wind, which by now had dropped to a strong breeze. St Marys were hampered when one of their backs had to retire from the field after a nasty bang to his head in the lead up to the second of these two tries. We wish him a speedy recovery.

Frampton went on to dominate both territory and possession throughout the second half and scored a further four tries through Bandon Ball (x2), Morgan Stiles and Lewis Oakley. Lewis converted two of these tries to leave the final score at 52 points to nil.

Make no mistake, this was a very good performance by a young Frampton team. Yes, there were points left on the field, but to score eight tries and to keep the opposition at arm’s length for the whole of the match speaks volumes for the potential at Frampton. Coach Andy Jarrett was delighted with the whole team for showing a maturity beyond their years. It is difficult to single out any one particular player, but the coach thought that captain Austen Davis was worthy of special mention for his leadership of the team.

This win puts Frampton in fourth place in the league, just behind the pace setters. Next week Frampton have another local derby away to Whitehall, who have not enjoyed the best of starts to the season. Please try to make the short trip to BS5 to support Frampton in their fine start to the season.

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