Quintin 7-27 Royston RFC

Quintin 7-27 Royston RFC

ROYSTON RFC travelled to far flung Chiswick for a league encounter with Quintin looking to secure their position in the top four of the division.

Royston kicked off and instantly drove their opponents back with a series of shuddering tackles, in fact not one Royston player touched the ball before Quintin had conceded a lineout on their own five-yard line.

A well timed jump and take from Sam Morris led to a driving maul which in turn Nick Alford peeled from to score the first try of the game. Deards missed the conversion.

Quintin kicked back to Royston from the restart and an excellent catch and surging run from Steve Mills put Royston deep into Quintin territory in the left hand corner, the ball was well recycled and spun at speed through all the backs hands to young speedster Chris Ellis on the wing to score the first of his brace of tries, again the conversion was missed.

Royston really turned the screw on a match that was not yet 15 minutes old probing Quintin through their powerful back-row and through the speed and guile of the exciting back-line. The next score came from Scott Easy before Deards converted.

Quintin rallied at this point and managed to hold out defensively until the half time mark.

The second half kicked off with Royston playing into the wind, which made them keep the ball in hand rather than kick for territory and as the half wore on and the wind increased more and more passes failed to hit their mark.

Frustratingly for Royston Quintin had to replace two props so the scrums had to go uncontested after Royston had driven every Quintin scrum back five or more meters. Without the strong platform of the scrum Royston lost their way a touch and allowed Quintin a converted score to bring the game back to life.

Royston responded again with a well placed pick and drive by Ben Squaddie for another five pointer and finished the match off with another breakaway try from Chris Ellis which again went unconverted to secure a bonus point and a great away day win.