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London Skolars 'A'  32 - 26 St Albans Centurions
Round 1 RLC Southern Premiership
21st April 2007

The new look St Albans Centurions kicked off their RLC Premiership campaign with a narrow defeat away to tournament favourites London Skolars at New River Stadium on Saturday. Both teams entered the game unbeaten in their pre season friendlies and something had to give and it was the Cents who went down by a 6 point margin in what was a valiant display. Coach Shame Rampling was able to field the core of his first choice side, supplementing the effort with 5 of last seasons u16 winning side, now able to play open age rugby league at 17 years old. The side was much changed from that which was competing in NL3 in 2006, only Oli Fountain, Owen Doyle, Rampling, Adam Cox, Richard Smith and Andy Lake playing.

The game opened in the worst possible way for the Cents when in under a minute the Skolars were on the score board when after an early penalty allowed them top make good yardage, neat work from stand off led to a length of the field foot race and the conversion made the score 6-0. The Cents took this set back on the chin and knuckled down seeing out the next few sets in defence and putting together some slick offence and they were unlucky not to get a score recorded on 8mins when Cox drove for the line, but lost the ball in the act of scoring. Cents made amends on 12mins when after good work from Ian Moulds and Dean Maloney, Dan Chilcott found space out wide, and the returning Doyle timed his run perfectly to notch up a try and the Chilcott conversion made the score 6-6.

Cents were to suffer two injuries blows when first Craig Foster and then Peter Chapman had to leave the field for the duration of the game with injuries to the head and knee respectively.

The game was being played at a very fast pace and after a couple of indiscretions, the Skolars loose forward was sin binned for persistent infringement in the rook area. Cents could not take advantage of the man advantage and in fact just before he returned to the field, the Skolars added to the tally when they again went the length of the field and the conversion made the score 12-6. Tiredness was creeping into the Cents play and they paid the price for static defence when on 35mins. Skolars scored again and the score was 18-6, and it remained this way until half time, although Cents did bomb a guilt edged chance to score just before the half time hooter.
















Cents assistant coach Richard Louw was pleased with the first half effort despite leaking the two tries late on but was keen for the team to tighten up their defensive effort and cut out unnecessary penalties. It appeared like deja vu in the second half, with less than a minute on the clock the Skolars crossed the Cents line only for the try to be disallowed for a forward pass. This appeared to the kick the Cents into life and they made good yards into the Skolars half, Paul Maloney and Mark Wrenn to the fore, forcing the Skolars into errors. This effort was rewarded when on 5mins the ball was moved out wide and an excellent slip pass from Lewis Padmore allowed Smith to canter in on his return to the side. Chilcotts conversion made the score 18-12. The intensity of the game was increasing and the crowd was becoming more and more vociferous appreciating the significance of every play and on 17mins Cents sensationally got on the score sheet again when from a penalty the ball was moved out wide and Jack Cornthwaite got his first senior try for the club, and the score was 18-16. Andy Lake was reintroduced for the final 20mins after having an unusually quiet game by his own high standards and he started to put in some heavy defence and made some good yards.

5mins later a speculative kick though from Rampling was fielded by Skolars full back Rees, but the ball was dislodged by the ever alert Fountain and Rampling came through to touch down the loose ball, much to the delight of the Cents team and the conversion made the score 22-18 and Cents were ahead for the first time in the game. The game took another turn on 27mins when the Skolars gained excellent field position after several penalties piggy backed them upfield and they capitalised with a try, and this was soon followed on 32mins when they broke through a tiring Cents line to make the score 28-22.

An excellent short kick off from Chilcott was gathered by Padmore and Cents took advantage of the disorganised Skolars defensive line as Doyle shot through to score and with the conversion missed it was all to play for at 28-26. Both sides were out on their feet and they should both be credited with a fine game, which was sealed by the Skolars on the stroke of full time when their rangy centre Afreh managed to stretch in at the corner making the final score 32-26.

So the Cents went down but they came away with a lot of credit. Coach Rampling said 'That was a tough game, certainly as tough as any NL3 game I played in and you would expect that given the Skolars were fielding several players with first team experience. Our boys went well and I believe it was a game we could and should have won. Our penalty count was far too high and some of our one on one defence poor but we scrambled well at times and we put some good attacking moves together. We certainly can come away from this game thinking positively about the next fixture at Storm next week. That promises to be just as tough.'

Coach Rampling hopes to offset the loss of Fountain, Lake and Chapman with the return of Kristian Warner and names sake Jon Warner, along with Roy Dube, and is hoping to bring on board Dean Callis to give some much needed experience to the youthful three quarters.