Match Report
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| Date - 18th September 2004 |
Old Brentwoods 1st XV-v- Billericay 1st XV |
| Powergen Junior Vase |
| Old Brentwoods 8 Billericay 25 |
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| Old Brentwoods played out their first round Powergen Vase tie against
Billericay at Ashwells Road last Saturday. The visitors, winners of the competition in the late
1990s and playing their Rugby in Essex division 1, went into the fixture as
firm favourites to progress.
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| With a clear weight advantage in the pack, Billericay chose to play down the
slope in the first half. A strong cross wind would make the control of kicking
difficult throughout the afternoon. Despite securing much of the early
possession, the visitors handed the Old Boys an early territorial
advantage with a number of poor kicks. Strong running from the Old Brentwoods back row, with James Holmes to
the fore, allowed centre Jerry Shouksmith to strike at the heart of the
Billericay midfield, an infringement at the breakdown gifting Paul Sier a
straightforward kick to open the scoring.
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| Billericay took little time to reply to this score, taking advantage of a
penalty to set up a throw in the home side's 22. An unstoppable rolling maul
from the visitors opened their account with a try, although no conversion followed. Old Brentwoods responded by playing
with a great deal of width even from below their own posts and elusive
running from James Faiers opened the wide channels for both Sier and Bourne.
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| The visitors sensed their superiority in the tight and continued to gain
yards through this tactic. The Old Boys were temporarily reduced to 14 when Fryett, desperately trying to stop the
onslaught, was deemed to have collapsed the maul and received a yellow card.
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| Old Brentwoods' best chance came in the 30th minute when a quick tap penalty
from Neil Hannaway released captain Reah in midfield. A "smoke and mirrors"
dummy baffled the defence and an opportunity for the line arose. However, a fumbled
take by the usually-safe hands of Shouksmith saw the chance for the lead wasted. A halftime score of 5 - 3 to Billericay was a fair reflection of the game.
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Possession was more evenly shared during the second half, due in particular
to the destructive work of Croom at the front of the lineout. The best passages
of play came through the snappy work of Hannaway at scrum
half, often aided by the rampaging Mullen at No.8.
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| In the end, ruthless exploitation by the Billericay side of loss of Old Brentwoods
possession at the breakdown resulted in three tries for the visitors.
The last of these was an excellent individual effort from the Billericay
full-back. The Old Boys' score came in the dying minutes of the game when
Holmes powered down the blind side to feed Dunseath for a simple 20 metre
run-in. Billericay had the last word however, with a penalty from in front of the posts to bring the final score to 8-25.
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| After a difficult start to the season, the Old Boys should take much heart
from their performance with many positives to take forward into their league
programme.
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