Chelmsford Sport
Coach's pitch praise after Chelmsford win
12:42pm Wednesday 8th February 2012
CHELMSFORD 17 OLD STREETONIANS 3
RUGBY: Chelmsford coach Eddie Gooby was full of praise for the council’s efforts in preparing a pitch that ensured their game was one of only a handful played in the whole country.
A pitch inspection at 1pm ruled the ground playable, so the match got under way as early as 2.10pm.
Old Streetonians proved to be more of a handful this time around than they did earlier in the season and Chelmsford managed to grind out a hard fought 17-3 victory against a resilient Streetonians side by three tries to nil.
The visitors showed a willingness to run the ball and, had their finishing been a little better, then they may have troubled the home side. Their forward pack were also much bigger than the home side’s and it took Chelmsford a while to get into their stride.
The bitterly cold wind had a major bearing on the game, as understandably the handling was poor and there were many unforced errors by both teams, but despite this both sides tried to play attacking rugby.
It took just over half an hour for Chelmsford to get on the scoreboard, and from a catch and drive, second row forward, Joe Touma, was on hand to touch down for the first try.
Immediately after the restart, Chelmsford were penalised for being offside and Old Streetonians reduced the arrears to two points. With Chelmsford playing up the slope they looked for a further score before half time and they got it when wing forward Jack Venn was on hand to touch down after another catch and drive from a line out. Chelmsford led 10-3 at half time.
Playing downhill in the second half, Chelmsford were looking to up the tempo, but shortly after the restart they had a scare when the visitors had an overlap situation. However, the referee ruled the pass forward.
A few minutes later Chelmsford had an opportunity to put the game beyond doubt, but the final pass out wide was dropped.
Chelmsford then managed to exert some pressure in the far corner of the pitch and after a series of penalties, one too many as far as the referee was concerned, he awarded a penalty try under the posts, which was duly converted by Dan Trayler, to take Chelmsford into a winning lead of 17-3.
Old Streetoninans have a reputation for starting a game strongly and then fading and, while their forwards did fade a little towards the latter stages of the match, they did have an opportunity to score when a Chelmsford pass was intercepted, but the Chelmsford cover defence managed to cut out the move. This win meant Chelmsford climbed up to fifth place in the table.
Eddie Gooby said: “We knew Old Streetonians would prove to be a hard physical encounter and we got exactly that.
Some of our boys are still carrying knocks from previous games and on a surface like we had today, I am relieved we didn’t suffer any further injuries.”