Saturday 14^th January 2012

London 1 North (Level 6)

Eton Manor 34 Hammers 8

The Hammers made another trip to the Essex region for their match against Eton Manor on a cold frosty day, when they were looking improve on their present league position.

The Hammers had a promising opening start to the game making good ground with the forwards drives but the resolute Eaton Manor defence held firm from the initial onslaught. From a lineout Eaton Manor secure good ball and nearly scored the opening try when their fly half saw that their right wing was up against Bart Casagrande and chipped the ball over the top, which he gathered and looked certain to score, but a last ditched tackled by Pieter Vans Rensburg unbalanced him enough to loose control of the ball and from the resulting scrum for the knock on the Hammers cleared the ball to touch. Just after this Henry Tanner nearly intercepted a pass by the Eaton Manor centre inside our twenty two, but just failed to hold onto the ball, which had he held no one would have prevented him from scoring. Another chance came for the Hammers when Neil McClure made a counter attack break from own half and passed to Henry Tanner who beat several players and gave an inside pass to Jimmy Graham supporting who thought he was going to score, but a covering Eaton Manor defender put in a strong tackle dislodging the ball making it go forward just metres from the try line. From the resulting scrum the Hammers won the ball against the head and Eaton Manor were penalised for being offside. Neil McClure kicked the resulting penalty, so making the score 3-0 to Hammers. Eaton Manor started to put some pressure on the Hammers defence after this and from a scum just outside the twenty metre line their scrum half ran through the Hammers back line without being tackled by anyone, to score their opening try which was converted. The Eaton Manor team was now dominating the game and should have scored again when they created an overlap on the right wing but a final forward pass was spotted by the referee and the Eaton Manor try was disallowed. From the scrum Eaton Manor won the ball which was moved quickly from one side of the pitch to the other and their centre crashed over for a try which was not converted, making the score 12-3 to them after 25 minute. The Hammers raised their game with Charlie Baillie and James Boysons in the forwards putting in a great deal of hard work to secure ball for our backs who use the possession wisely through Toby Harris and Neil McClure, but the Hammers could not break the good defensive line of home side. Neil McClure had a chance to kick a penalty to increase the Hammers score during this period, but just failed with his attempted. After soaking up this pressure Eaton Manor scored again when the ball was moved to the outside centre from a line out who ran straight over the attempted tackle of Hennie De Jager, to score a try under the posts which was converted. Hennie was injured trying to make that tackle and was replaced by Alex Ratcliffe. A few minutes later the Hammers were penalised at a breakdown and Eaton Manor kicked the resulting penalty to make the score at half time 22-3.

Straight from the re-start kick off the Hammers gain good ground through driving play by Nick Ball and Hugh Campbell from an advantage played by the referee when Eaton Manor knocked the ball on, but somehow the Hammers forwards lost the control of the ball at a ruck they should have won and Eaton Manor countered attack moving the ball swiftly through the backs and forwards were it eventually found its way to the ever present scrum half who ran unopposed to the line to score a try after only one minute into the second half, which was converted. It was a long way back for the Hammers from 29-3 down, but there was still a chance to get something out of the game as we were winning good clean lineout ball through Bart Casagrande and Nick Ball and our backs looked dangerous when they had the ball in the right areas of the field. But with all the pressure and the amount of ball the Hammers team had through the second half we couldn’t get the tries we needed to put Eaton Manor under pressure as we missed several opportunities from good positions to score tries from such as five metres scrums and line outs on a couple of occasions. Finally from one of these attacking line outs Bart Casagrande secured clean lineout ball and from the resulting rolling maul Jimmy Graham broke off and scored a try that was not converted to make the score 29-8. The Hammers continued to have the majority of play and territory in the second half for long periods but did not add any more points to the scoreboard. From one of their few attacks in the second half Eaton Manor scored their final try in the last five minutes from good open play between their forwards and backs. This try was converted so making the final score 34-8 to Eaton Manor.

The may difference between the teams was that Eton Manor took their chances when they came along, whereas the Hammers missed several opportunities to score that would have put pressure o the home team.