Tring 3's Blow Away Royston 2's

The 3rd team got off to a breezy start in this match, taking confidence from last weeks outstanding win. Within a few minutes of the kick off Tring had made their way up the pitch, been awarded a penalty and kicked into the wind to the top corner of the 2nd pitch. in very tricky conditions for a line out thrower, Dan Maxwell continued his excellent form and found his man, Jamie Street who was excellent all game. Mat Hutchin has finally found a Tring team that wants to live off of his rolling maul strategy. He has been banging on about this for the last 20 years! It's working! The forwards formed a perfect rolling maul, great body positions and controlled by Mat at the back. The try followed the fantastic maul. This was the first of his 3 try's in the match, making him our top try scorer this season. Not that he told us in the bar after! Tring continued their gale force performance a few minutes later, after a mistake by the Royston backs in the Tring 22, a kick through and pick up by Nick Game who then finished superbly with a couple of sidesteps, a dummy and pure gas to breeze past their back line to score in the corner. Nick had been switched to Full Back this week to see if the team could get him more time on the ball. The plan worked well and his influence from the back was proven. He scored two tries and two conversions.

Tring continued to dominate the match. Royston never gave up and their half backs played well. However they were out played by our two excellent scrum halfs. Luke Patterson switched to 9 this week and Ed Martin moved to fly half, again the plan worked well. Both were excellent throughout the game. Luke was asked to boos the forwards, he seemed to enjoy the responsibility and Ed to run the back line, which he did with excellence. His performance was then backed up by Bruce Ferguson at fly half. After the forwards won the game last week so this week was the backs turn. In extremely windy conditions this did not deter them from running great attacking lines and showing off some excellent handling skills. With Duncan Maddinson deported back to Australia Mat Boswell was given a chance at inside centre. Before the game I asked him to take the chance and fill the big boots left by Duncan. Mat did that and more. Pulling out a storming performance to win man of the match. He ran straight and hard, tackled with good physicality and made plenty of yards. A brilliant first ever performance at 12. He was helped out superbly by George Percival who also has a fantastic game and communicated with distinction to the back line.

Thomas Burrows, after his winning antics last week also bagged a brace of tries, his first ever. One from around the halfway line after some good handling, their winger had the angle on him but Tom showed his power with a hand off from the Mat Hutchins play book. More tries followed, Danny max would be distraught if i didn't mention his offload for George's try! It was well done! Rory Bowness also scored a 60 metre try, a flanker on the wing and one of the quickest on the pitch. Welcome back after a few weeks out injured. I also thought Andrew Sherring-Lucas had a very good game at hooker, the versatile player getting a chance to start this week. He has become a good addition to this quickly improving squad.

This was a comprehensive win, and one for the backs, who were given a great platform from the forwards. After causing a cyclone on the pitch we have blown our way to Top of the League!