Match report

3rd October 2010

Ledbury 17 - Bromyard 10

On a very wet Sunday morning the ledbury team were in confident mood as they took the field. In very difficult conditions it was always going to be a close game, and the winners were going to be the team that made the fewer mistakes and played to the conditions.

Ledbury had a large squad and there were many positional changes through the game which did not help the continuity, and Bromyard rucked very well and put Ledbury under some pressure in the first half. However, they lacked real penetration, Ledbury tackled well and it was from good positional play that a scrum resulted in the Bromyard 22. Will Dzioba picked up from the back of the scrum, handed off several players and forced his way over for the first try.

This was the only score of the first half, although Bromyard did get over the line, only to drop the ball.

In the second half Bromyard struggled to get into good attacking positions, and were forced to try an expansive game from deep. The defensive lines worked well for Ledbury, and it was a brilliant interception from Steve Evans that resulted in him running in from halfway to score his first try for the club.  10 - 0.

Bromyard came back strongly and scored twice as Ledbury allowed themselves to get distracted again. Bromyard had a player sin binned for foul play, and Ledbury were once again in a tense, aggressive battle. The referee had to work hard to control the game, and Ledbury to their credit, unlike last week,, regained composure and dominated teritory again, forcing Bromyard to kick. Ali Martin gathered the loose ball on the 10 metre line, picked the gap and outpaced the Bromyard defence to go over under the posts. Steve Evans converted.

With time running out, the referee calling the last play, Ledbury had a scrum. All that was needed was a solid ball to scrum half and the ball kicked dead. But Ledbury like to do things the hard way. Bromyard stole the ball and drove forwards. Two penalties took them close to the line and a desperate lungelanded inches short of the line. The final whistle went and the victory was Ledbury's.

This was the correct result, but the squad need to learn from this. Tactics need to be clearly conveyed to players and we must keep channeling all of our efforts and aggression into rugby.

A morale boosting victory puts us in good shape for the cup game next week.