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Droitwich U15's 11 - Ledbury U15's 15

Sunday, February 17, 2008

This match was a disjointed affair with both teams suffering throughout with recurring penalties and mishandling. The match started off very even with both teams probing for openings and testing the oppositions defence. Droitwich put the first points on the score sheet with a move constructed by Sam O’Brien who neatly laid on the pass for Sam Cave to slip through the Ledbury defence to score the opening try of the game, Oliver Swift was unlucky with the conversion from an acute angle which hit the cross bar and bounced out. The game continued to be littered with penalties and errors which didn’t allow either side to play their normal flowing style of rugby; Droitwich took advantage of some good positional kicking, which allowed Oliver Swift to add a drop goal to Droitwich score. In the later stages of the first half Ledbury finally opened their account with a try in the corner after some well constructed positional kicking and line out play, the first half finished Droitwich 8 - Ledbury 5.

The second half continued in much the same way as the first, with errors breaking up some good positional and attacking plays by both sides and good defensive kicking keeping the game in the middle of the field. Droitwich again opened the scoring with an Oliver Swift penalty, which Ledbury quickly responded to with a penalty themselves. The game became a midfield battle with both teams pressing for the score which looked likely to win this very close match. As the final few minutes were ticking down Ledbury were pressing the Droitwich try line and charged down a defensive clearance allowing them to run in for a try and kick the conversion. Droitwich pressed from the restart, pushing Ledbury back to their own try line and continued to probe for an opening as the clock ticked down and also well aware that the ball must be kept alive, to have any opportunity to score themselves. Finally, it was an error induced penalty which brought the game to an end.