Saturday 31 October 2009
Southern Counties South
Half way there
Dorchester 1st XV 44 pts – Minety 1st XV 11 pts
Though their fitness and discipline let them down towards the end, a resolute Minety take many positives from this tough away fixture against league leaders Dorchester.
Still struggling with injuries, Minety were grateful for the willing services of several draftees from the fixtureless 2nd XV. This included their complete second row who, as well as ably carrying out their regulation duties of shoving and heavy lifting, executed 12 tackles between them and ran the ball whenever given the chance.
Dorchester were first on the scoreboard thanks to a try from lock Lee King. Though they followed up with another from winger Tom Gower, Minety’s robust tackling made its mark and prevented any further scores before half-time.
Minety centres Dave Church and Max Sparrow were on top form, clocking up 30 tackles between them and consistently making good yards on the break.
The visitors began their response with a penalty goal from flyhalf Jack Ward and followed up with a beautifully worked try from winger Martin Coe, exploiting an overlap after his team had successfully moved the ball through several phases.
With the score standing at 10-8 at the interval, the game looked a close thing but as the second half progressed, Minety began to tire and their discipline began to fray. Dorchester flyhalf Adam Jones ran in a try, and though Ward slotted another penalty goal for Minety, it was not long before Rob Hodges ran in a try to increase the home team’s lead.
When Ward was sin-binned for back chat to the referee, Dorchester took full advantage of the automatic overlap to close out the game with three quick tries, two going to Lee Harvey and the last to fullback Matt Read. To rub salt in the wound, Adam Jones converted the last three scores and added a penalty goal to boot.
Disappointed with the result, Minety coach Huw Jones was nevertheless enthusiastic about his team’s progress. “The first half was the best we’ve played all season. The defence was fantastic. All our hard work over the last eight weeks paid off and for the first time we made over 80% of our tackles. Now we need to work on our discipline and what we do when we’ve got the ball.”
This Saturday, Minety play a crucial home game against fellow strugglers Bradford-on-Avon.
To see what Dorchester thought of the game, and to discover how Nigel knew the names of all their players, click here: http://www.dorchester-rfc.co.uk/match_reports_0910/minety_home.php.