Market Harborough vs Silhilians
Match Report
13th October 2019
The conditions were not exactly ideal with torrential rain overnight persisting right through the warm up and match. Silhilians burst the MH bubble last season with an 8 tries to 1 victory and MH were eager to get their own back. Sils took a complete squad to this fixture following a cancellation the previous week with Tom Masterson Sils captain for the day.
After a 50 minute warm up the sides faced up. Lots of vocal support and lots of hard tackling saw Sils break the dead lock with captain Tom setting the tone taking on all comers and smashing over the line for first blood. Monty A missed a difficult angle for the extra 2 points. A really close hard game ensued with MH nicking one back with a beautifully weighted kick chase. They missed the conversion and the game of cat and mouse continued until a rushing Sils defence saw Monty Adlington intercept the MH pass out wide to nip over the line. 10-5 soon became 12 when Monty slotted home the conversion.
MH were not going to lie down and despite some fantastic Sils defensive effort penalties against Sils took their toll and MH scored another kick chase unconverted try to trail 12-10 at half time. The second half started with MH pushing hard it wasn’t long before they scored again, missing the conversion for a 15-12 lead. Now if you know anything about this u14 Sils squad you knew that was red rag to a bull. MH were looking tired and Sils could smell blood. A lot of hard yards saw Sils camped in the MH half when a cheeky cold 9 from Ross Hilton at scrumhalf to the hard charging Will Conduit resulted in Sils 3rd try which took the score to 17-15 to Sils which became 19-15 when golden boots Monty hit the conversion. We were now in the closing stages of the game and what seemed like penalty after penalty to MH saw them 10 yards out from the Sils line. Hard work and effort is second nature to Sils and amongst the bodies and rucking chaos MH went wide only for the Sils rush defence to snap up the pass. Arjen Panesar breaking MH hearts with a length of the pitch try closely followed by a jubilant Sils squad. Up steps Monty to take the extra 2 for a 26-15 victory. I cannot stress how hard every single Sils player worked for this victory against a well drilled highly motivated MH team.
Man of the match this week went to the brilliant always smiling Ciaran Sullivan for a blistering first half performance.