Pegasus Palmerians v.s Old Brentwoods Match report

Last Saturday OBRFC arrived at the home of Pegasus RFC, the weather was true of that of the Greek gods, with strong winds and heavy rain forecast. The squad remained the same from previous weeks and the focus was shipping the ball through the hands with the winds making kicking difficult to judge.
Pegasus got the match underway with a kick off into the wind, the strong winds caused the ball to stall and made for a good contest between the two forward packs. OBRFC collected and started their attack round the fringes. This wasn’t an issue for a big Pegasus pack who showed no signs of allowing yards through short ball. Good pressure from the forwards soon caused the errors and OBRFC took control. Playing the game as planned, the ball was distributed swiftly through the backs and out to Joe Davis who had come forward from fullback. Quick feet and good support lines gave OBRFC the first score of the game. This was the first of 4 for the travelling side all coming from hard forward lines from Sam Wilkinson and Steve Pearson, opening up space for Jamie Pugh and Liam Talbot to capitalise on. Solid place and goal kicking from Joe put OBRFC up by 24 points to nil at half time.
Change of ends and a change of plan, the wind was now strongly against. Joe restarted play with another high ball which stalled again, this time proving too much for the Pegasus front row and conceding a knock on. A powerful scrum created a great platform for James Lennox to make the most of his size and draw multiple defenders in. The space opened up and saw Baz Letts scuttle through near the posts. Then the intensity and willingness from OBRFC seems to drop, but the game was well and truly not over. Poor discipline around the breakdown and handling errors see OBRFC on the back foot, tight in the corner. A great driving scrum from Pegasus sees the ball pop out of the back and collected by a sharp flanker who drove his way over the line to put the first score on the board for Pegasus. This would be the turning point of the game, Pegasus continue to use the wind and a big boot to keep OBRFC in their own 22. A few changes on the field and the dynamic struggles to re-align. Holes start to appear and tackles become passive, further scores from Pegasus with well kicked conversions put them right back in the game, scores stand at 24-21. With only 10mins left to play, OBRFC showed good passion to up the defensive pressure. Big tackles from Nick Clarke stopped their backs from gaining any momentum. Last minute of the game and OBRFC concede a penalty. Pegasus fancy their chances and opt for the lineout deep in their oppositions 22. Ethan Kannor flies up in the lineout and disrupts the attack causing a knock on for the relieved woodies. Scrum down and ref calls final play, although in the strong winds it seems it’s not clear to the backs, the balls comes out to Jamie Pugh and is soon shocked to hear the call, under pressure Jamie opts for the long range kick out to the far touch to end the game. But it’s short! Pegasus started to mount an attack through the backs. Sharp defensive work puts great pressure on the attacking team and forces a handling error, the runaway ball is swiftly hacked into touch to end play. OBRFC take the win but huge respect to the Pegasus team for not losing without a fight.

MOTM – Nick Clarke (Attacking support and defensive leadership)
DOTD – Jamie Pugh (“Pissing into the Wind” - Not finding touch to end the game)

1ST XV Team: Dave Embling, Liam Tilly, Richard Clarke, James Lennox (C), Sim Kooper, Steve Pearson, Sam Wilkinson, Baz Letts, Tom Bassett, Liam Talbot, Nick Clarke, Jamie Pugh, Rhys Newton, Joe Davis.

Sub; Darragh Harnett, Stuart Smyth