19th September 2009


Maidenhead 33 - 19 Witney
(league fixture)
 

Maidenhead found themselves up against a big and well drilled pack from Witney, and although they managed to get the better of them in the second half in the set scrums they were only at parity in the line-outs. It was at the breakdown where they were a poor second best losing an awful lot of good possession to turn-overs purely because they didn’t commit enough players and failing to drive over the ball even when they had the players in place to do it.

As regards their defence against the rolling maul, which Witney were particularly good at, well it didn’t really exist. In fact so poor was it that Witney scored a try with a rolling maul from just on the Maidenhead 22 metre line. Or maybe we should acknowledge that the Witney forwards were exceptionally well drilled. How do you defend against a rolling maul? Not easily it must be said but committing the maximum number and then getting the body angles low and driving the opposition forwards up is a good starting point.

From this so far you would think that Maidenhead were very lucky to win but the forwards did get good ball and the backs were very dangerous whenever they attacked which was increasingly so as the game got into the second half and the heavier Witney forwards started to tire.

The first score was by Witney when their inside centre ran through a large gap in the Maidenhead midfield. But Maidenhead responded with a try when Simon Cripps and St. John Ford combined well to make the score 7 – 7. Then Witney scored again when they wheeled a 5 metre scrum and pushed over to take a 14 – 7 lead. Maidenhead then hit back when Ed Poulding was put through under the posts and a few minutes later they scored the best try of the match when Alex Menard, who was having a very solid game, Simon Cripps and Ed Poulding put Dave White in near the posts to make it 21 – 14 to Maidenhead at half-time.

It now seemed as though the rest of the match was going to be a tussle between the Maidenhead backs and the Witney forwards, and as it turned out it was the Maidenhead backs who came out well on top. However it was Witney who scored first in the second half when they engineered a push-over try (unconverted) from on the Maidenhead 22 metre line. The response was quick, when Adam Findlay kicked ahead, collected and ran in under the posts for a very good individual try. With the score 28 – 19 to Maidenhead it seemed that the next score might be crucial. However the game was now being played almost exclusively in the Witney half as their forwards were beginning to tire rapidly and eventually a score came in the last few minutes when a big tackle by Simon Cripps, virtually on the Witney try line dislodged the ball, and he was able to score the final try. This gave Maidenhead a win by 33 points to 19. So that’s played 3 won 2.

Written by David ‘The Pencil’ Anthony.

 
(Match statistics)