Match Report for Cardinals

Saturday 30 January 2010
London Scottish ll 15 vs Esher 17

The Cardinals travelled to London Scottish on Saturday for their own top of the table clash and returned home 17-15 winners after a feisty match that saw 3 players sin-binned and 2 sent off.

Starting the match strongly, the Cardinals had Scottish under pressure up front and were dominating the scrum allowing the backs time and space to create openings. The pressure built and after 10 minutes, following 4 phases of play, quick passing between scrum half Ian Barnes and both props, Colm Hannon and Dave Millard, resulted in Millard going over in the corner for an early score. With the conversion missed, Esher led 5-0. Although Esher continued to dominate up front, Scottish were never out of the game and a period of pressure by them resulted in their No9 running blind from a scrum 15 metres out and scoring in Esher’s corner. With the kick missed the scores were level at 5-5 and remained that way until Ross Fowles broke through a tackle and sprinted clear to score. With Rob Kirby taking over kicking duties, the conversion was made and at half time, Esher led 12-7.

Scottish took off one of their struggling props, claiming injury and the match went to uncontested scrums, taking away one of Esher’s advantages. With the second half barely underway and the underlying niggles from the first half continuing, Esher saw themselves reduced to 13 when first Kirby and then Doherty were sent to the sin bin for offences. During this time Scottish kicked a penalty and then converted a try to lead 15-12. The return of the ‘injured’ Scottish prop to the field did not help things and although the match remained with uncontested scrums, it was obvious the player was not injured. Restored to full strength an making full use of the bench,  the Cardinals gradually started to get back into the match, absorbing the Scottish pressure and then, in the last 10 minutes, starting to re-dominate the game. Both sides then lost players to red cards after a fight broke out, following what looked like a hard, but fair tackle. The Cardinals kept building pressure and having worked a line out just inside the Scottish 22, Cardinals caught and drove, and drove eventually sending Scott Cameron over for the match winning try 2 minutes from time.

The Cardinals remain top of the Rugby Tech Shield leagues with 4 games left to play. The outcome of the league is still in their hands as the season builds to a climax.

Team; Kirby, Turton, Edwards, Wilson, Fowles, Cole, Barnes, Blakeburn, Cervino, Doherty, Ripley, Ayling, Hannon, Broadest, Millard.

Subs; Watney, Frazier, Cameron, Tubasei, Copper-Miller, Losardo, Thompson.

Scorers; Tries – Millard, Fowles, Cameron

              Conv – Kirby 1