Grovians ran in six tries as they travelled to Shaw Lane beating Barnsley 32-19.
On a brilliant sunny afternoon and a hard pitch Grovians started brightly and after five minutes full back Max Kennedy danced through five defenders after Grovians had won good line out ball on half way. Brown added the conversion.
With Grovians looking dangerous with ball in hand Martin Mitchell added the next after poor tackling in the left corner. After 23 minutes the Grovians forwards had several goes at the line in the left corner but then spread the ball wide and Anthony Griffin found a gap to score. Three minutes later a lovely kick through by Alex Masterson resulted in Mitchell out running any Barnsley cover for his second try and the Grovians had a 22-0 lead at half time
As expected, Barnsley responded after the break and scored their first try, from a scrum on the left a Barnsley forward battled his way over under the posts, the try being converted.
After 56 minutes Masterson was shown a yellow card for what the referee deemed a high tackle. Ten minutes of Barnsley pressure followed but the Grovians defence held firm. Grovians then extended their lead as Brown put in a clever chip on half way that was collected by Grifiin who put Kennedy in for his second try of the match and a Grovians lead of 27-7.
The home side weren’t finished however, the Barnsley right winger scored and the try was converted. Right from the kick off Grovians failed to put the catcher in to touch and he broke up the touchline and Barnsley scored in the left corner, the conversion missed and Grovians led 27-19. With a minute left Grovians were awarded a penalty but Brown’s ‘flamingo’ boots that had been misfiring for most of the afternoon drifted the kick to the left of the posts.
In injury time Grovians completed a fine afternoon when the pack went through a series of keep ball moves and then Jack Hartley broke right to put Griffin in for his second try of the afternoon.
A fine win on the road for Grovians. The pack held their own in the set piece despite all of last week’s front-row being missing through injury. The backs were sharp especially in attack and the whole teams defence good.
The win puts Grovians joint top with Roundhegians on maximum points from two games.
Team : Kennedy, Stearn, Griffin, Phillips, Mitchell, Masterson, Brown, Hardy, Secker, Johnstone, Dodd, Elcock, Worrall, L. Harrison, Hutchinson Replacements:- Hartley, Ryan, K. Rika-Rayne