Old Elthamians 31 Cambridge 3

Elthamians kept up the pressure on league leaders Ampthill with an emphatic five-try performance against Cambridge at College Meadow on Saturday.

It was OEs’ biggest home win of the season, their biggest ever win against Cambridge, and aside from a closely contested opening quarter, their five tries to none was a fair reflection of their dominance of the set piece and greater attacking threat.

The Elthamians management had called for a positive response after the disappointment of the Ampthill defeat a fortnight ago which blew a massive hole in their title hopes. And to their great credit, the players delivered against an industrious and lively Cambridge side who came to play from the first whistle.

There were strong performances all over the park: Ben King enjoyed a storming afternoon at No.8, particularly with the ball in hand; Rhys Morgan, given a rare start at scrum-half in place of Ollie Claxton, was a livewire around the fringes - scoring one try, setting up another and generally proving to be a thorough nuisance to the Cambridge defence; and full-back Ben Howard, a counter-attacking threat throughout, showed his intent from the first whistle, electing to run the ball back from deep.

But the victory was built on a dominant OEs scrum, led by man of the man Kieron Scutt on his return to the front row after a three-month absence, which caused Cambridge no end of problems up front all afternoon.

Scutt and company made such a mess of the Cambridge scrum that the visitors were never able to build any momentum or continuity, forced time again to attack off the back foot and build from deep. Frankly, young scrum-half Finn Creighton deserved a medal for how many times he successfully managed to dig the ball out from under the feet of the rapidly retreating Cambridge eight and release his backs.

Aside from the scrum, however, there was little to separate the two sides in a cagey opening quarter. Cambridge enjoyed the majority of possession early on with No.8 Ciaran Moore driving deep into the home 22, and OEs were indebted to two try-saving tackles in quick succession from Kieran Moffat and captain Hamish Barton that prevented the visitors from taking the lead.

But two tries in the space of four minutes midway through the half saw Elthamians take a stranglehold on proceedings.

The first came predictably from a scrum inside the Cambridge 22. The visiting pack were shunted back over their own goal-line allowing King to touch down for his first try in six games.

With the visitors still regrouping, OEs struck again shortly afterwards. A darting run from Morgan around the back of a lineout on the edge of the Cambridge 22 split the Cambridge defence wide open, allowing the scrum-half to off-load to Joe Carlisle for a short run to the line.

Morgan went from provider to try-scorer on 33 minutes. A burst up the middle from James Golledge, making his 100th appearance in an Elthamians shirt, earned the home side a scrum just outside the Cambridge 22. Morgan sprinted away down the blindside and cut inside two defenders to score an opportunist try.

It gave the home side a commanding 21-3 half-time lead, Cambridge’s only points in the opening period coming from a Ben Penfold penalty.

Cambridge started the second half pinning Elthamians in their own 22. But they could find no way through miserly defence despite the promptings of halfback duo Creighton and Penfold and the energy of full-back Mike Ayrton bursting into the line.

Both sides were reduced to 14 men when Cambridge prop Matt Meek and OEs counterpart Alex Rogers were yellow carded for an altercation entering the final quarter. But Elthamians had to wait until the 69th minute to secure the all-important bonus point for a fourth try when replacement hooker Jay Rudland-Thomas dived over from a driven lineout inside the Cambridge 22.

Howard capped a clinical OEs performance three minutes from time when he finished off slick interplay between backs and forwards to touch down in the left hand corner.

SCORERS:
Old Elthamians
Tries: King 25 Carlisle 29 Morgan 39 Rudland-Thomas 68 Howard 77
Cons: Carlisle 25 29 39
Pens:

Cambridge
Tries:
Cons:
Pens: Penfold 34

TEAMS
Old Elthamians: Howard, Lespierre, Golledge, Moffat, Perkins, Carlisle, Morgan; Rogers, Morris, Scutt, Hosking, Self, Ledger, Barton, King. Replacements: L Brown, Rudland-Thomas, Preocanin, Claxton, White.

Cambridge: M Ayrton, Hema, Brown, J Ayrton, J Green, Penfold, Creighton; Meek, Ruddock, Higgins, Bretag-Norris, Baxter, Benoy, Fox, Moore. Replacements: Rayment, Rukhadze, McCloud, Rayner, Asiedu

Referee: Fergus Kirby

Half-time: OId Elthamians 21 Cambridge 3

Star man: Kieron Scutt (Old Elthamians)