Ross on Wye 0-73 Longlevens
There's been a running theme in most of our first four matches of starting with a bang, then letting the foot off the gas. The message to the players before the game was to keep the fast start, but to ensure the second half was as good as the first. What actually happened was a reverse of the current trend, a relatively slow start, followed by a second half try fest.
Longlevens did get off to their customary fast start, scoring in the first five minutes for the fourth time in succession. From a scrum centre field in the Ross half scrum half Wilkins fed 10 Dan Gordon, he hit Tom Barton with a great pass, with Barton cutting an unstoppable line. He made his way to the 22 and managed to get the ball away to Matt Smith, who cantered over the line, converted, 0-7.
This has normally opened the first half floodgates, but despite almost 100% possession, Levens didn't score again until the 30th minute. Decent Ross defence, coupled with a few dropped, last passes meant there was a fallow 25-minute period. On the half hour Levens did get themselves back on the scoresheet. Good phases from right to left opened up the stubborn Ross defence, and fly half Gordon was able to offload to winger Sam Hester to go over for his first of the day. Tom Barton was the next to score, hitting a good line from a scrum and outpacing the defence to dive over in the left corner. This was followed by Joe Weatherley going over after another first phase scrum play. Sam Oliver hit a crash ball line and was able to get the ball away to Weatherley to go in under the posts, leaving the half time score 0-26.
Although the boys expected to be more points up, there was no panic. The Ross team was tiring, and they knew they had plenty more left in the tank.
The second half was a flood of tries, with one being scored at regular intervals. Matt Smith got his second after five minutes, a line out on half way was executed well, with the ball coming off the top and finding its way to Smith. He hit a customary good line and danced around the Ross backline to go over for a converted try.
Winger Peter Sykes was the next to go over, scoring the first of a second half hattrick. Smith was again causing problems coming into the line from 15, he executed a nice switch to Sykes who read it well to score wide out.
The scrum was beginning to become very dominant, with the pack going forward at a rate of knots. From an 8 pick a ruck was formed and captain Jed Holman- Jones was on hand to power over , the was followed by an almost identical phase of play, with the ball being spun wide this time for Hester to dot down in the corner.
Sykes completed his hattrick with two tries from first phase, both scrums, with the winger showing the defence a clean pair of heals each time. Tom Barton completed the rout in the right-hand corner to make the final score 0-73. Special mention must go to kicker Wilkins who slotted 9 out of 11 conversions.
This was a dominant 60-minute performance, and when Levens put in a 70 to 80 minute one, the results will keep coming.
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