Abbey target Bletchley win

Sportsdesk • Published 9 Feb 2010 09:00 0 Comments

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ABBEY

OPTIMISM is in the air at Rosehill this week as they travel to Bletchley for a South West One East game they have targeted to win.

Consecutive wins against Oakmedians and Olney, followed by a much improved performance against Cheltenham last week, have injected a good dose of confidence.

Back row stalwarts Steve Willis and Eifion Robinson are set to return after missing out last week. And despite Owen Rees and Jim Dye struggling to get over knocks, the team news is good.

"I've got the problems any coach wants", says coach Adam Hurst.

"I have choices in almost all positions, and I'll be looking at Dave Cole who did well last week.

"Steve Drake's ham string is fine, so he'll be there along with winger Gavin Dampies whose speed always causes problems."

Abbey's back line has been potent throughout the season, and the issue of getting a solid platform of possession has been improved, thanks to hard work in training, the return of Lee Waite and Arun Gupta joining the club.

Hurst has talked down the concept of Saturday's Bletchley clash being a 'must win' game pointing out that Abbey have now played most of the top sides in the division twice.

However, he added: "I'm confident of the win."

Bletchley, though, are on a run of three wins against lower league clubs, and they have a heavy set of forwards who will test Abbey's new mood of confidence.

Last week's result pushes Abbey back in the relegation slot. With the club above them, Salisbury, playing yet-to-win Wotton Bassett, they will be looking for Marlow to beat Walcot, to help them out of the drop zone.

If Buckingham beat Olney and Swanage and Wareham beat Trowbridge, there will be a three clubs all sharing the same number of points and Abbey will be clawing their way up the league.

* LAST weekend Abbey came crashing back to earth with a 48-3 defeat at home to runaway leaders Cheltenham.

However, the Rosehill side were realistically never looking to beat the promotion favourites, who have only lost twice so far this season.

And there were plenty of positives to take from the defeat. The scrum operated well and there was plenty of dogged defensive work to keep the west coast side at bay.

ABBEY: Drake (Gaspa Rebull), Warwick, Waterhouse (c), Coackley, Dampies, Hurst, Heath, Waite, Charlton, Gupta, Pawlett, Boswell, Reddy (Cole), Mutepfa, Bryson (Reddy).

READING

READING rugby club's first XV will hit the road again on Saturday when they travel to play Gloucester team Coney Hill in National Three South West.

With just nine games to go Reading are in a precarious position in the league, with only Chippenham and Maidenhead below them in the table and athe possibility of three clubs going down.

Coney Hill have had far better results than Reading since the start this season but like the Berkshire club have lost their last two games, both away, to Bournemouth, 23-12, on January 30 and to Cleve, 28-0, on February 6.

Hill are in seventh position in the league and have won nine and lost eight of their 17 matches played to date.

They have also gathered eight bonus points.

* LAST Saturday Reading slipped further into relegation trouble as they fell to their eighth straight league defeat at Barnstaple.

The Green Machine showed plenty of fighting spirit and fancied their chances of sneaking a win entering the last 10 minutes, trailing just 14-10.

However they were hit by a late blitz as they finished on the wrong end of a 31-10 defeat.

Reading conceded two converted tries in the first half and had just a penalty from Shaun Brown to show for their endeavour as they trailed 14-3 at the break.

But a Moses Matau try, converted by Brown, put them right back in it at 14-10.

That is how it stayed until 10 minutes from time when Barnstaple ran in two more tries to confirm a bonus point.

READING: Bakoso, Speight, Donnelly, Matau, Cavuilati; Brown, Dorliac; King, Cranton, Grierson, Taylor (c), Sharp, Veale (Pratts), Phillips, Uluikede.

GENSIANS

REDINGENSIANS coach Alun Rise admits it would be a massive reward if his men can gain a bonus point at runaway National 3 South West leaders Taunton on Saturday.

"I feel we can run them close. But we have to play structured for most of the game instead of just for brief spells.

"We lost 50-17 to Taunton but we were certainly not 30 points worse than them. That day we scored three tries and it could have been five."

The Somerset club, who were promoted from South West 2 East with a 100 per cent record last season, extended their winning league run to 41 last weekend.

In a 32-10 home success over Chinnor, their danger man winger Charlie Walker-Blair grabbed his 19th try this term.

But fifth-placed Gensians, with a relatively easy end of season run-in, know that one or even two bonus points against Taunton can trigger a best ever league position.

With skipper Tom Clare remaining on the bench, back row man James Watkins retains the captaincy after the 27-23 win at Exmouth.

James Dunn, at full-back, is set to start his first league game as Tom Allen is on holiday in South Africa.

Meanwhile Simon Swadling continues at fly-half in the absence of top points scorer Spike Chandler, right, who requires a groin operation and is out for the rest of the season.

Gensians: Dunn; Clements, Reynolds, Freeth, Matthams; Swadling, Flynn; Saunders, Dewland, Baker, Hulland, Root, Watkins, Parfitt, Stapley. Reps: Clare, G Davies, Matthews.

* MAN-of-the-match Nick Dewland steered Gensians into the semi-finals of the Berkshire Cup with a 35-10 win at Maidenhead.

His touchdown put the Old Bath Road men 16-3 up soon after the break and they proceeded to take control of the tie.

It was a just reward for the young hooker, who had worked tirelessly in the loose, Maids having no answer to Gensians' forward power.

Coach Alun Rise admitted: "We improved as the game went on. We had more control and territory in the second half after being a little disappointing before the break.

"A lot of the lads were playing out of position and took time to settle down."

Both sides had only a sprinkling of first team players on show, but it was Gensians who drew first blood, full-back Joe Matthams going over in the corner.

Then for most of the first half, Maidenhead enjoyed plenty of possession but did little with it, their only reward being an Ed Keohane penalty cancelled out by Andy Tweedie.

Early in the second half, Tweedie's second penalty extended the 8-3 interval lead before Dewland made Gensians' forward pressure tell.

Matt Hulland, in good form at No 8, put his side well and truly in the driving seat. He sneaked a touchdown after a Maids scrum was disrupted.

Six minutes from the end, Scott Harris' length of the pitch try, converted by Keohane, gave the home side some consolation.

But there was still time for Ben Saunders and Andy Tweedie to add injury time tries to which Matthams added the extras.

Gensians: Matthams; B Saunders, Denham, Amor, Dunn; Tweedie, Matthews; T Saunders, Dewland (Minifie), Tainton, C Davies (Root), S Hallett, Milne, Horn (Flynn), Hulland.

* FORMER Gensians winger Warren Abrahams has signed for Berkshire rivals Bracknell.

The South African paceman will play for the Lily Hill Park side for the remainder of the season and has already signed on for 2010/11.

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