Silhillians 22-14 Droitwich

Silhillians got their season up and running following a disappointing performance last week, with a well-deserved victory over rivals Droitwich at Copt Heath on Saturday.

The home side was much changed from last season accommodating five home debutants in Mark O’Leary, Gavin and Graham Hadley, Mike Hughes and Tom Waters in the ranks along with a welcome return for Ed Emmett after a number of seasons away from the club.

Sils got off to a flying start applying pressure to the visiting side from the off. It didn’t take long for the home side to capitalise on some weak defending from the visitors. Following a scrum the Sils forwards produced quick ball for inside centre Harrison Law to score under the posts in the 8thminute, which was duly converted by Steve Hawkins. Sils continued to apply pressure to with some enterprising attacking rugby, however it took until the 24th minute for the home side to trouble the scorers again. This time outside centre Ed Emmett cut a delightful line through the visiting defence to score beneath the post, which was again converted by Steve Hawkins.
Following Sils’ second try the game began to fizzle out, as it became very stop start and lacked in tempo that Sils had been thriving off. The visitors managed to level game through both good rugby and ill-discipline from the home side.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the home side started to dominate once again, led by an extremely hard working set of forwards that had control of the scrum and lineout throughout the afternoon. Steve Hawkins kicked a penalty in the 60th minute to edge the home side in front, this seemed to galvanise the Sils who began to throw the ball around and could have produced a number of scores. It wasn’t until the 70th minute when the flying tight head Mark O’Leary gathered the ball out on the wing and bundled his way over the line that there was daylight between the two teams.

The final 10 minutes provided both entertaining and nerve racking moments along with one of the biggest tackles I have seen in a number of years, by Mark O’Leary, as the home side went for the fourth try and bonus point and the visitors tried to close the gap an pick up a bonus point if not the win themselves. Unfortunately or fortunately whichever way you want to look at it, for the spectators there were no more scores and the game finished 22-14 to Silhillians.

Silhillians next game is Saturday 24th September at home to Stafford in the RFU Cup.

Photos
Photos