Silhillians 2's Vs Kenilworth 2's

In the wide rolling vistas of Copt Heath Sils took on Kenilworth, as the opposing sides of the draw for the 2nd Team cup met in the league. Sils started badly failing to wake up in the first five minutes, which Kenilworth capitalised on. Kenilworth kicked off long into Sils half and immediately began to apply pressure, after a few phases they had turned the ball over and sent in a neat grubber to Liam at fall back, who knocked on resulting in a scrum for Kenilworth. Kenilworth took advantage of this, and after a few phases scored the opening try of the match. Almost immediately after kick off Kenilworth were back in the Sils half and won a penalty. What followed was one of the most disgusting incidents that you can see at this level, as Kenilworth opted to kick for the posts. We would emphasise that we believe that this sort of anti-Rugby is not in the spirts of the game, and that Saxons never opting to kick penalties has got nothing to do with the fact that Andy Richmond Kicks our points.

15 minutes into the first half and the Saxons finally made it out of the changing rooms and began to attack. With some good carries by the forwards and the centres making meters up the pitch the Sils could sense a try. At five metres out the ball popped up for Andy Holden to try to go over, he was brought down with 3 meters to go. Unperturbed by his presence on the floor, the big man proceeded to heroically crawl the final 3 metres on his hands and knees to dot down for a glorious prop’s try. Unfortunately the referee intervened and correctly pointed out that you definitely can’t crawl in rugby, and Kenilworth were able to clear their lines. A neat line out from Mckenna resulted in more Sils pressure, and eventually Josh Mallett was able to go over in the corner.

A lung busting 4 minutes of uninterrupted play flowed from the restart. With both sides running the ball well and returning kicks to each other. This ping pong was eventually ended when Kenilworth booted the ball into the Sils 22 and into the arms of Andy Holden. The mighty prop surveyed the scene in front of him, instantly calculating a thousand possibilities. Should he take it to contact? Should he pass to the 15 on his outside? No; those were options for lesser men, Andy’s eyes narrowed as he knew that there was only one possible path forward. Kick.
The resulting kick hammered into touch and resulted in a line out on the Silhillians 22. At this point Bod and I went to avail ourselves of two Shipyards from the clubhouse. On our return we found Gowen standing at the back of the palatial dead ball area. As soon as we were in earshot, he proceeded to mount a spirited and technical defence of why he should never have been carded for back chat, which would have impressed even the most accomplished magic circle lawyer. In his absence Kenilworth managed to bag 3 trys and a penalty before halftime. Sils were able to reply with a try of their own, with the returning Tom Manise dusting off the cobwebs to run over Kenilworth’s smallest player to go over for his first try of the year. Nevertheless Sils went into the break behind.

Sils started the second half much more brightly and after 10 minutes of attack they had a lineout on the Kenilworth 10m line. With a slick lineout move and the centres offloading to each other nicely, the ball made its way to Patrick on the wing to go over for the first points of the second half. Having got themselves back to within 10, Sils allowed Kenilworth to relieve the pressure with another try, leaving them 17 points adrift with 20 to go. Using the power of the Sils Scrum and finally being rewarded with some penalties for it, the Saxons began to come back into the match. At this point Mallett broke out his dancing shoes to ghost through the Kenilworth defence with a lovely sidestep and to bring the Sils within 10, with 10 to go.

Unfortunately, at this point the Sils fell apart, as Dan Lloyd was rightly yellow carded for tackling with his head. This allowed Kenilworth to score off the resulting penalty and follow it up with another try in the final play of the game, leaving them victorious at 26- 44. Despite the score this was an excellent game by the Saxons, with a lot of positives ahead of their Semi-final in two weeks Vs Leamington.

By Henry Morris

DoD – Mike “the mouth” Gowen
Honourable mentions – Dan Lloyd
MoM- Josh Mallett
Honourable mentions – Muss