Chosen Hill U14s 28pts
It was dull, cold and damp on Sunday 14th December when Chosen Hill came to Drybrook to play a friendly under 14 fixture. The game was played in good spirit and two evenly contested sides played out a close encounter. To summarise Drybrook won by 31 points to 28 outscoring Chosen Hill by five tries to four. The coaches picked Rohan Parry and Lee Wakefield as ‘men of the match’ for Drybrook and the Chose Hill coaches picked Rowan Mullis. The Drybrook coaches also thanked those players who took the field for Chosen Hill to make up the side.
Drybrook kicked off and their forwards chased down the ball exerting pressure in the Chosen Hill 22m area. In spite of the pressure Chosen Hill remained resolute and from a ruck, the ball was moved to their strong running centre Rowan Mullis. Mullis made ground running deep into the Drybrook 22 with Drybrook tacklers floundering. Lee Wakefield at fullback managed to hold on to Mullis and bring him down. From the ensuing ruck, Mullis was fed the ball again and he strolled under the posts to score a converted try.
From the restart, Drybrook knuckled down and managed to win a scrum inside the Chosen Hill half. Scrum half Jack Worgan passed to fly half Rohan Parry who under pressure from the defence, broke several weak tackles and scored a Drybrook reply, the conversion was missed making the score 5 points to 7.
Fifteen minutes in and in their own half, Drybrooks forwards led by Jarred Field were dominant in the scrum. Winning against the head, the ball was fed right by Jack Worgan to Parry who used his pace to race over half the length of the pitch and score under the posts. Parry himself converted.
From the restart, cleanly taken ball by Drybrook was moved mid field, only for the ball to be fumbled. Chosen Hills Joel Townley hacked the ball through to the Drybrook line, he fell on it to score a Chosen Hill try that was converted.
On 25 minutes the referee, blew for a Drybrook scrum just inside the Chosen Hill half. Calling ‘last play’ Drybrook moved the ball to the left and from second phase, Parry gathered to scamper to the line for a try that he converted himself.
Half time: Drybrook 19 pts Chosen Hill 14pts
After half time Drybrook seemed to rest on their laurels and after 10 minutes, the score had changed to 19 points to 28! Rowan Mullis had managed to breach Drybrooks weak mid field defence to score twice under the posts, both tries were converted.
The Drybrook coaching team made some positional changes, with the aim of galvanising the defence. With this, Drybrook got their act together and through a huge forward effort in the last fifteen minutes big territorial gains were made.
Outstanding effort from Aiden Haynes and Caleb Lloyd produced an opportunity for Tom Pollack to score in the corner, but the try was disallowed by the referee. From the ensuing 5m penalty however, Ben Jones crashed over to score. A couple of minutes later a pick up and rush by Caleb Lloyd in loose play saw him score near the posts. The try was converted by Parry.
A knock-on at scrum time after the referee had called last play, meant that he called time to end the tie. The winning score line for Drybrook was 31 points to 28.
Drybrook squad: Aiden Haynes, Ben Jones, Caleb Lloyd, Callum Wilson, Harry Jones, Jack Worgan, Jarred Field, Josh Kemmett, Kieran Mahoney, Kieran Worgan, Lee Wakefield, Lucas Gardner, Morgan Hancock, Rohan Parry, Sam Horton, Tom Pollack
