Nick Surtees on the charge
RLC Round 4 - West London 54 -v- 12 St Albans Centurions 17.05.08
St. Albans Centurions suffered their worst defeat for two years when they went down to the unbeaten West London Sharks on Saturday. For the sorry Cents the darker aspects of Murphy’s Law were evident as everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
The Centurions were hit by injuries, late withdrawals and the unexpected emigration of a prop forward. And if that wasn’t enough, full back, Jack Cornthwaite spent the whole of the first half, stuck in London traffic, desperately trying to find the ground.
The result was a hugely inexperienced pack with key players forced to play out of position, a reduced substitutes bench and players still carrying injuries dragooned into the starting line-up.
Under the circumstances, it was a credit to the Centurions that they managed to hold the Sharks at bay for as long as they did, competing reasonably well for the first forty minutes.
The game started ominously for the St. Albans boys when, despite good defensive work from Ross Dempsey and Angus Simpson, Williams scored for West London after only four minutes. The lead was increased when Bartells converted and then added a penalty goal.
On 25 minutes the Cents hit back as Russ Kellaway smothered a West London kick and ran half the field to touch down under the posts. The try was converted by Dave Hancock, who played with real spirit all afternoon.
West London were back on the scoresheet with tries from Moriarty and Montgomery. The young St. Albans side were struggling to contain their opponents but after half an hour, it seemed that they might still be able to make a game of it. A clever kick off saw the Cents regain possession and after a typical surge from Paul Maloney, who worked tirelessly all match, Chris True skipped through the defence to score under the posts. Dave Hancock added the extra two points. Even when the Sharks scored just before half time to make it 22 - 12, there was still a sense that if the Cents could just complete their sets and perhaps move the ball out left to van der Merwe and Steinberg, they could still get something out of the game.
But it was not to be. The second half saw the rampant Sharks run in seven more tries, three of them when the Cents had Miles Dempsey, Matt Spencer and Oli Fountain off the field injured and Rudi van der Merwe sin-binned for dissent. This was a very trying afternoon for the Centurions.
Team: Fountain; True (try); Kellaway (try); van der Merwe; Steinberg; Rampling; Simpson; Maloney; Hancock (2 goals); M. Dempsey; Spencer; R.Dempsey; Hensby; Weldon; Molloy; Chapman; Cornthwaite.
Juniors Make It Two Out of Two 17.05.08
London Junior League - Under 14's
Greenwich Admirals 16 -v- 18 St Albans Centurions
Strong forward play by Aaron Gregg and big Sam Shinn, coupled with an impresive team effort from all the team led to Cents Juniors second win in two games. Reports coming from the game say that Cents were also impresive in their defensive play, and bearing in mind this is their first season together, they are now improving week on week. Nathan Rich, Daniel Hedison and Corey Gray also deserve mention for their input into the victory. Will next weeks home game against New Addington be 3 from 3?
