Street win third game in a row.  

After a two week break due to freezing weather, Broadstreet RFC travelled to Old Northamptonians RFC for yet another basement battle.  Three weeks had elapsed since the extremely close game at Manchester RFC in which Street were saved from the ignominy of being the first side to be defeated by Manchester in eighty games by the last minute heroics of Ben Dawes.  This would have been compounded by the fact that Sky Sports News had turned up to cover the game, so follow this link for a quick snippet of Broadstreet on National TV News (http://bit.ly/zkEHUF) writes Luke Truslove.

Changes to the team from Manchester included Ben Dawes switching to Hooker due to James Taberer’s unavailability and Pete Bicknell moving back to the Wing with Andy Funnell reverting to the bench.  Todd Freemantle resumed at Centre, whilst Stew Hendry slotted in at Number 8 with Ady Nightingale dropping out of the squad.  A significant inclusion on the bench, having been out for eight weeks, was Scrum Half and Club Captain Nick Thatcher.

TEAM: Beales, Dawes, Dearden, Greevy, Simkiss, Dodd, Zutic, Hendry, Simpson, Richards, Bicknell, Challis, Freemantle, Veebel, Harman.

SUBS: McCrea, Thatcher, Funnell.

The match kicked off after a downpour that made conditions difficult, but Broadstreet headed down the notorious ONs’ slope hoping to take advantage in the First Half.  Utilising the Pack well and with some good positional kicking from Richards, Broadstreet spent most of the opening quarter camped in the ONs’ half.  Unfortunately, kickable penalties each for Harman and Richards were squandered as Street seemed to have difficulty turning possession and territory into points, so for the next phase of attack Broadstreet opted for the safer option of going through the Forwards. 

On 23 minutes Street elected for a Scrum when they were given a Penalty five metres from the  ONs’ line and were rewarded with their first points of the game with Stewart Hendry going over the whitewash.  Once again, conditions meant that the kick was missed. 5-0

Street got over the line for a second time but interference at the base by ONs as Street neared the Try Line meant that the act of scoring was disrupted with questionable legality.  This was followed up by a spell of around five minutes camped on the Old Northamptonians’ line but despite numerous pick ’n’ goes, the home side’s defence held out until a Broadstreet error presented them with a well-earned clearance kick.

Somehow Broadstreet went in at half time only 5-0 up, which considering the territory, possession and downhill advantage was really was worrying.  Could Broadstreet be made to rue the missed opportunities?

HT 0-5 

Broadstreet gifted possession from the kick off and the ball was shipped to ONs’ Backs with the impressive Charlie Barker going through almost up to the Try Line.  Covering tackles brought him just short, but from the resulting Scrum Alex Rose set up his backline with Barker finishing under the posts.  Rose slotted the extras and Broadstreet were behind two minutes into the Second Half.  7-5

Ben ‘Ibanez’ Dawes found his man in the lineout with the Pack setting up a Rolling Maul as Eddie ‘Backrow Bus Boss’ Simkiss used his experience to position himself at the back in prime position for the score.  Within inches of the line, ONs illegally sacked the Maul to concede a Penalty Try, thus denying Simkiss his anticipated Try. 7-12

Soon after the restart the normally reliable Rose missed a straightforward Penalty.  However, from the 22 Restart ONs moved the ball left and fed Fly Half Rose who dinked a sublime cross-field kick behind the Broadstreet defensive line right into the path of grateful Wing Richard Blank who beat the Full Back to score.  Rose added the extras. 14-12

Broadstreet missed another Penalty midway through the Second Half and despite once more maintaining control of possession and territory they were making hard work of converting it into points.  The tipping point for the strong ONs’ defence was the sin-binning of Centre Kieran O’Connor who mistimed his tackle as Street Full Back Funnell jumped to collect a high kick.  No injury was caused, but nowadays dangerous tackles customarily come with a Yellow Card attached.  His absence was felt almost immediately as Broadstreet began to look a lot more dangerous in the Backs.

With ten minutes to go Stew Hendry picked from the base of the Scrum in Street’s own half and made good yardage up the left wing, his inside pass to supporting Chris Dodd was well collected and finally Luke Veebel joined the attack to be brought down just short of the Try Line.  A few phases later and after a couple of pick ’n’ goes Chris Zutic slipped round the side of a Ruck to score Street’s third Try, though Richards once more missed the conversion on a difficult day for the boot. 14-17

For the last few minutes Broadstreet continued to look dangerous and were well rewarded when Todd Freemantle, with the final play of the game, broke through the centre and disregarding his support blasted through the final defender to score Broadstreet’s bonus point fourth Try. This time Richards slotted the hardest kick of the game to round off the match with a comfortable lead.

Three wins in a row for Broadstreet may hint at something of a resurgence, but they were all against teams positioned directly beneath them in the league.  Street really made too much hard work of it in this game.

FT 14-24

MotM – Beales, Dawes and Dearden for a fine Front Row performance.

DotD – Andy Funnell for spiking the ball into the ground in a tantrum after getting tackled in mid-air.

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