Stoke 31 Old Halesonians 19

Old Halesonians were the visitors to Hartwell Lane with Stoke looking to maintain their good recent home form.
The visitors demonstrated their forward strength at the first scrum, drawing a penalty on the home teams put in. This allowed them to relieve the early pressure and gain some territory. A scrum five metres out pushed the Stoke pack backwards and the number eight picked up and scored the first try for the visitors. The response from Stoke was swift. From the restart Jamie Loska knocked on in an attempt to win the ball back. From the resultant scrum the Stoke pack produced an excellent effort and drew a penalty, this was kicked to touch eight metres from the home line. A catch and drive from the line out ended with Sam Yorke scoring to make the scores level. The following period of play was a bit scrappy with Stoke dominating territory and possession. After thirty two minutes, from a Stoke scrum twenty five metres out, the ball was moved quickly to the left with Chris Rowley entering the line from full back to find a gap and score in the corner. Following the score Stoke were able to pick up the pace of the game and move the ball quickly, stretching the Old Halesonians defence. Just before half time an excellent run from Jack Furnival committed the defence, he timed his pass perfectly and put winger Nick Oxley in for a good try. Ciaran Shone added the conversion to make the score 17-5 at half time.
Any thoughts that this was going to be a comfortable win were soon dispelled. A series of strong carries from the Old Halesonian forwards ended in try wide on the right, the conversion was good taking the score to 17-12. Stoke again responded well, raising the pace of the game with some quick ball from the ruck. Thirteen minutes into the half the ball was moved right to Nick Oxley, he bumped a tackle and outpaced the cover defence to score his second try of the game under the posts. As the game moved into the final quarter Old Halesonians maintained possession through multiple phases drawing in the defence, this enabled the ball to be moved to the right winger who scored in the corner. The conversion was good making the score 24-19. The visitor’s tails were up, sensing the possibility of their second victory of the season. They were applying pressure to the Stoke line with a series of strong carries from their big forwards. The Stoke defence were digging deep, not helping themselves by giving away too many penalties. The pressure was eventually relieved by an excellent clearance kick from Chris Rowley. It was now Stoke’s opportunity to apply pressure, a penalty was kicked to within ten metres of the visitors line. A catch and drive from the line out was held up over the line forcing Old Halesonionas to drop out from their goal line. Chris Rowley collected the kick just beyond the twenty two, he chipped the ball over the on rushing defence and managed to collect his own kick and score under the posts to give Stoke a hard fought victory 31-19.

Written By Mike Yorke