Kingswood vs Cotham Park

On a cold and windy Saturday afternoon Kingswood hosted 2nd place Cotham Park. Both sides saw the importance of this game, with both teams out for their respective warm-ups long before kick-off.

The team saw a few changes from the week before. Joe O Leary stepped into centre, with Chris Phillips out onto the wing following Aarons swollen eye, Ian Kirley was on the other. James Wilmott returned to full back. The forwards remianed unchanged but had an eager Damien Crosswell waiting on the bench, along with Matthew Perriman.

Kingswood did well from the start and a solid 20 minutes they camped in Cothams 22. However, some strong defense and solid scrummaging (especially their number 3) saw Kingswood come away empty handed, with only a missed penalty kick as any reward they had gained.

After around 30mins of to-ing and fro-ing between the sides the deadlock was broken when Vince Murrell, the Kingswood number 8, was sin binned.
Cotham Park took the three points from the kick and shortly after, after some doglegged defensive lines, their number 10 went over for a try.

Half time - 8-0 to Cotham.

After some stern words from the coaches and unsurprisingly Paul Allen (still out with a chocolate...I mean broken....jaw)Kingswood upped it in the 2nd half. The start of the second half saw Vince Murrell back on, Damien replaced Dave Vince in the front row.

Straight from the kick-off Kingswood worked their way up the pitch through a combination of backs play and strong mauling from the line-outs. This came to fruition when Ben Phillips wiggled his way over the corner for a try. 8-5 to Cotham Park.

The fitness of the Kingswood pack was beginning to tell as they over took Cotham Park in all aspects of scrummaging and mauls. The Cotham Park no. 3 was sin binned and this threw their powerful scrum out the window.

The driving maul was really working for Kingswood and at every opportunity the home side used it to make their way up the pitch. With the maul drawing defenders in this gave space out wide as Dean took the ball from Phillips to offload to Jamma who took a lovely line and crossed untouched for Kingswoods 2nd try. Phillips converted. 12-8 to Kingswood.

With the return of the Cotham no. 3 you could see the hunger in their eyes to remedy their now ineffective scrum. Unfortunately, with Damien now on shoring up the front row, this came to nothing as their no.3 was held and Kingswood remained in control.

Around this time Muttley came on for Nick Coe and Adam Morris came on for Chris Phillips.

Fitness was really beginning to tell, and following all we had heard and read about Cotham, they started giving away penalties left, right and centre. One of these was converted by Ben Phillips to make it 15-8 to Kingswood.

Some stout defense in the last few plays of the game saw Kingswood emerge victorious at 15 points to 8.

Man of Match - Al Green
Ass of Match - Vince Murrell