Mill Hill v Belsize Park - (by Mike Reed)

Mill Hill 19 - Belsize Park 19

17th January 2009 - Away

The “hub” at Regents Park is a pretty modern set up with great changing facilities.  The “hub” of Mills game against Belsize pre match was considered to be a solid scrummage and clean line out ball, neither turned out to be the case as a pretty abrasive and useful Park front 5 managed to stop any fluidity in Mills game. 

Playing with the breeze on a fine January afternoon Mill managed 3 first half penalties well placed by Overton.  Mill went close to a try by splitting the park defence on 2-3 occasions following decent breaks through coopo, robbo and skippy.  Abi proved himself a rather large handful with 2-3 forceful runs as did Loomo Green.  Moreover Dave Buss and Johnson also went close.  If a try could have been tacked onto the 3 penalties the remainder of the match would have been a more relaxed affair in that a higher degree of control would have been prevalent and hopefully that would have led to calmer more assured play.  

This was not to be though as Park entered Mills 22 for only the second time in the game on the stroke of H/T, a forceful maul and ruck set up the Park centre to jink and batter his way over from 15 yards. 5-9 HT.

The start of the second half saw Captain Johnson (sprung wallet) being replaced by Giloo.  Mill played pretty solidly into the breeze and tackled very well around the park generally marshalling Belsize fairly well for long periods. This coupled with extremely strong driving runs by Kilroy supported by Wilko gave Mill a rucking focus point to try and work forward from.   The game   though was fairly staccato as offence after offence was committed by both teams, at times neither side could quite work the arbitrators decision process out however for the most part both teams “just” about kept there cool.  Although this game could really have “gone” off in a bad way, perhaps in part due to the overall management of the ruck and maul contact points.     

 
After spurning some kickable penalties and with their gander up Mill eventually got the marauding Wilko free to break across the line, with Overton just failing with the conversion.  5-16.     With the wind at their backs it was certain that at some point Parks front 5 would get an opportunity in Mills 22 to exert some pressure this duly occurred and they scored a fair try from the back of the scrum 10 yards out.  10-16.

Mill rebounded and again were playing most of the rugby in the park 22, yet a catastrophic chain of poor control saw Belsize break 80 yards  to score under the sticks with 8 minutes remaining despite fine cover tackles by coopo and david overton. Conversion kicked 17-16.

Mill would not lie down and Alex’s drives and all-round team commitment saw Wishart nearly across the whitewash and with Belsize repelling everything the writing was on the wall.  A last minute penalty under Belsize’s post though allowed overton the chance to gain 3 points with the last kick off the game 17-19. 

Team :-  The Harlow Roze, 10 minutes Buss running late, Nat Atkin, Low Flying Bird, Wandering Wish, Roger Wilko,  A. Kilroy-Silk ,  Shag,  O’Connor,  Skippy, Abi Olawakola-Cole,  Robbo,  Coopo,  Loomu,  Davejarvoo  Reps Giloo, Sternoo,

Ref:  The very charming John Williams.    London Society.
Assistant referee.   GGoooooooooooo.
Next week another crucial league game at home to Royston 2:15 KO.

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