Droitwich upset Sils start to 2018

The game started as a typical winter rugby fixture. A cold clammy day the pitch conditions were boggy, not suiting the Sils fast and fluent style of play. Droitwich had the rub of the green during the opening encounters. Early build up of phases from the home side led to their first try when the droitwich scrum half picked 5m’s out to switch with the hooker for him to cross the whitewash, five minutes in. Sils slow start continued as Droitwich got their second try just five minutes later. The disruptive start to the 2018 year continued as Sils hooker Fred Howard suffered from a knock to be taken off just 13 minutes into the game, Tim Trace coming on as an ample replacement and performed well as Fred’s stand in at hooker.
With 15 minutes gone a controlled scrum from the Sils pack set the platform for the backline to get their first clean attacking opportunity. Some slick movements from the centres, a bounce pass from full back Ben Crowe to feed Dan Walker to dodge and then offload off the floor to Harry Pick for quick sprint to the line to add to his try scoring tally for the season. A good conversion from Tom Lee got Sils closer to being back in the game. From then on, Sils applied majority of the pressure for the remainder of the half until Ronan Jones was sin binned on the stroke of half time for what looked like a Jonny May esque deliberate knock on.
With the pressure mounting on the Sils lesser numbered pack, Droitwich’s scrum disrupted Sils to lose the ball at the base and see the onrushing Droitwich back row and scrum half producing a score in the final play of the half. The halftime score being 20-7.
The Sils started the second half the better. Midfield pressure from the dream team centre partnership of Matt Lee and James Arney caused the Droitwich standoff to drop the ball. Harry Pick being the first to pounce and fly hack through into the opposition 22. The race was on with all the Sils midfield in pursuit of loose ball. Harry managed to get another boot to the ball first as well as being tackled off the ball by his opposite number. The referee saw this as being a try scoring opportunity and awarded the Sils a penalty try and gave the Droitwich 10 a yellow for his troubles. Game well and truly on.
The game then ebb’d and flowed with opportunities for both sides. With the next score being critical, the home side capitalised with their big pack carrying hard and crossing the whitewash to make it 27-14. Sils finished strong and after large amounts of pressure could not convert their pressure to points for the game to finish at 27-14.
The squad were encouraged to go away from home and get a much improved result from the thrashing that took place at Copt Heath back in September and can therefore start the year in a positive mind set as they to look to push themselves up the table to where they deserve to be.