Royston 66 Stanford le Hope 0 ROYSTON obliterated Stanford in the National Junior Vase on Saturday with an impressive exhibition of running rugby. Although Stanford had the bigger pack and competed aggressively at all phases they had no answer to Royston

Royston 66 Stanford le Hope 0

ROYSTON obliterated Stanford in the National Junior Vase on Saturday with an impressive exhibition of running rugby.

Although Stanford had the bigger pack and competed aggressively at all phases they had no answer to Royston's greater cohesion and occasional flashes of inspiration.

Although Royston tried a little bit too hard in the early exchanges, giving away penalties when they had won good territorial positions, they gradually established a platform.

However, the first try after 10 minutes came from a powerful burst from captain Shaun McDermott who burst through several tackles to score under the post and make Jason Deards' (pictured) conversion a formality, but vice-captain Billy Richardson was injured when trying to stop a rampaging Stanford forward and may have broken his collarbone.

Stanford managed to get to the Royston five metre line shortly afterwards, but good tackling kept them out and enabled Royston to score a sublime forwards' try when Charlie Fidler fed Matt Muirhead in space to enable him to draw the fullback and allow prop Charlie Sparkes to canter in from 20 metres. Deards converted.

Gary Ryall, Fidler and McDermott all add tries, all of which were converted, as the Crows went into the second half high on confidence.

Unfortunately for Stanford the wind dropped in the second half and with it any advantage they had hoped to gain from the bad weather.

As it was Royston began were they had left off and their first second half try was an example of superb support play and interpassing as Fidler caught the kick-off, ran to the 10 metre line and off-loaded the ball to McDermott who, five quick passes later, watched on as David Ayliffe crossed under the posts.

Shortly afterwards the forwards set up a good position on the right and the backs created an overlap to put young winger Dan Skuce, the Webcentric man-of-the-match, in at the corner.

Deards missed a conversion for the first time against the wind.

The forwards were now in their element, picking and driving prompted by scrum half Eddy Edwards.

It was still the forwards who were scoring with Fidler getting his second after good support and Muirhead finishing off a surging run through the defence, and in between another excellent display of passing between backs and forwards ended with Deards backing up Ayliffe on the outside to score under the posts.

Deards missed the last conversion but the final score of 66-0 did not flatter the home side who go into next week's League game with Uxbridge with renewed confidence.