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Broughton's emphatic
start to the season seems a distant memory as they lost their 4th
consecutive league fixture at a cold & wet Wardie on Saturday.
New boy Matt
Targowski started his first game for Broughton on the wing as the Wardie
outfit looked to bounce back from a string of defeats which has seen
them drop out of the top four automatic promotion places.
A fairly decent sized
crowd (i.e. greater than the sum total of the substitutes!) watched an
entertaining match, made more exciting by a pre-Xmas flurry of cards by
Referee Andy Waite in the second half.
Madras played down the Wardie slope in
the first half as they looked to take early advantage of the conditions.
They took only six minutes to do so when a scrum deep in the Broughton 22
set up a platform for the Madras scrum-half to pop the ball to the incoming
centre who's angled run and dummy opened up the Broughton defensive line
akin to the parting of the Red Sea. The kick from under the sticks was
duly converted.
The lead was double after a quarter of an
hour. A line-out midway inside the Broughton half was secured and with
the Madras hands dealing with the difficult conditions extremely well, the
angled run proved effective once again which resulted in another unopposed
score under the uprights. The additional points were added and
Broughton were 0-14.
Broughton rallied round at this stage,
waking up to the challenge and the rolling maul was working to great effect.
Nicolson was close on two occasions when his bulky frame landed over the
line, only to have been 'held-up' by the defiant Madras defence.
It was nearly all over on the stroke of
half-time for the home side. Broughton's persistent pressure, as a
result of Madras's constant infringements, nearly paid off when phase after
phase edged Broughton closer to the try-line. However, a stray Pyper
pass was intercepted and it was the quick tracking back by Koo and Dickson
which prevented a score.
Broughton started the second half with
more desire than the first and a comeback looked on after 5 minutes after
the break. The rolling maul, which has been an effective tool for the
side this season, bundled it's way over the line, with Cox coming up with
the ball. Hart was unsuccessful with the conversion.
The match official then infuriated the
travelling party when he reduced the College outfit to 14 men.
Persistent infringements throughout the game from the St.Andrew's based
outfit tried the ref's patience once too far.
Worse was to follow just 7 minutes later
when the Madras No.14 was to join his colleague on the sideline for a
similar offence.
It took a minute for the hungry Broughton
pack to capitalise on the numeric superiority and a rolling maul of some 20
metres guided by Nicolson at the back resulted in the big man dumping over
for a try. After the game, Nicolson advised your scribe that this try
should be awarded to the forwards along with Cox's earlier score. I am
not too sure if this was the case after a truck load of beer later!!
The extra points were missed and with 20 minutes left on the clock, it was
all to play for at 10-14.
Broughton's defence was too eager to
close down the Madras backline in the 68th minute as they tried to salvage
the result and were penalised for offside, much to the joy of the Madras
support. The kick, 20 metres out from in front of the post was
successful and it was a converted score between the sides with 10 minutes to
go.
Self-destruct is not a word used commonly
in one of these non-biased match reports very often, but I will use it now.
A ruck on the Broughton 10 metre line almost allowed the scrum half to make
ground and as he tried to navigate himself around MacFarlane but a trip
ended the run and a penalty, which was duly slotted over, meant that
Broughton would have to score in the last 5 minutes to at least salvage a
bonus point.
It wasn't to be and the job was made
harder when Captain Mike McLennan was the third player to enter the
referee's notebook for a Hong Kong Phooey-esque style attempt to charged
down the stand-off's kick from a line out deep into the Madras 22.
A look around for the famous Wardie
sniper could not be found as the player fell to the ground, but he was up
running like a 5 year old in time to cause enough disruption in the final
minute of play to catch the Broughton defence offside for the final time and
another 3 points were slotted to make the final score Broughton 10-23 Madras
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