MALTON SERVE UP A VICTORY FOR LADIES DAY
James Knock
Looking to reverse October’s 14 points margin of defeat at Dronfield, player availability gave the coaches the chance to blood two more of last year’s successful colts team, Henry Cornforth and Oli Owuor, and they also included Loughborough student Dylan Jones who has recently trained with the Welsh U20 squad.
Malton kicked off with the sun on their backs and it wasn’t long before Jones demonstrated the strength of his kicking out of hand, chasing the kick and putting pressure on the defence. Malton were on the attack in the opening five minutes but a simple knock on spoilt the first chance of points.
Dronfield came out on top of the first kick tennis duel with a net gain of 20 metres and at this stage of proceedings apart from set scrum where Malton were dominant as expected the sides looked evenly matched. In the tenth minute Cornforth showed why he was given his chance when with his first run, ball in hand, he made 10 hard metres.
One minute later with a free ball from a scrum close to the visitor’s line the ball was moved left and recycled on the Dronfield line but the resulting drive over the line was adjudged to have been held up. Returning to the place of the original scrum Malton opted to scrummage again and this time made certain with Angus dummying and skipping over the whitewash for a converted try. 7-0
Five minutes later Dronfield missed a simple pot at goal 20 metres out in front of the sticks.
Despite plenty of ball Malton lacked the necessary penetration and making a break proved difficult against a solid visiting back division.
However in the 25th minute pragmatism was the order of the day and a penalty awarded 30 metres out to the left of the posts was calmly slotted by Poole. 10-0
This was cancelled out one minute later when the visiting kicker made no mistake with a straightforward pot at goal. It proved to be his last contribution to proceedings as he left the field injured leaving his skipper to reorganise the back division.
With half time beckoning a clever chip and collect by young Jones put Malton in the visitor’s red zone and opting for a scrum penalty a few metres out, instead of a straight drive over the line the pick up and intended drive over by the home no8 was held up and the visitors cleared the decks from the resulting 5 metre scrum.
Malton swapped Cornforth for Owuor at half time and 20 minutes later Bell gave way to Ray on the wing. Ten minutes into the half Malton were in the Dronfield red zone and following two scrums the ball was moved left to Foster to show and break inside crossing the limewash next to the uprights. 17-3
With plenty of possession and time in hand Malton were now in a position to hunt for the two tries and maximum league points. That they failed to complete this task will lead to some head scratching and questioning by the squad and the coaching team.
However in the 65th minute with a penalty 25 metres out the decision was taken to convert it as perhaps the only sure fire method of getting the ball over the line or perhaps to make it a minimum 3 score chase for the opposition. 20-3
There followed 15 minutes of somewhat humdrum and dull rugby the only highlight was the yellow card awarded to the visiting prop after backchat as he was prostrate on the floor after 70 minutes of a working over by his opposite number Boothman.
Next week an enticing trip to the West Riding and a visit to the hillside ground at Old Brodleians awaits the squad and as many loyal supporters as we can muster.
Malton: Nick Salisbury, John Vasconcelos, Ben Boothman, Jamie Rounthwaite, Charlie Read, Henry Cornforth, Tom Lowry, Sam Triffitt (c), Paul Angus, Shane Poole, Will Bell, Dylan Jones, Jacob Stephenson, Ali Fothergill, Blair Foster.
Subs: (all used) Pete Hopkins, Tom Ray, Oli Owuor.
Scorers: Angus 1 try
Foster 1 try
Poole 2 cons, 2 pens
