Royston knocked out of trophy quarter final
Hertfordshire President’s Trophy Quarter Final Royston RFC 8 Old Verulamians 27
ROYSTON RFC were knocked out of the Herts President’s Trophy quarter final on Saturday by Old Verulamians in a repeat of last year’s final.
Royston kicked off and tore into their opponents from the division above with gusto from the off, no quarter was asked for and certainly none was given, and the first points were scored by the boot of Micheal Schurch who curled in a penalty into the wind from the far left-hand side.
OVs responded shortly afterwards with a blindside break after a missed tackle which put their prop in a two-on-one situation with Royston’s full-back. He wisely drew his man and gave the inside pass to score an unconverted try.
This stirred Royston into more barnstorming attacks using the physicality of Mills and Easy to batter their opponents and the guile and speed of Tegg and Deards to open them up.
During this frantic period there were a number of sin-binnings with OVs losing two players and Royston losing both Dummett and Morris for 10-minute spells.
Royston finally got some reward when, after a good break by Ellis down the right wing, the ball was recycled and fed down the line, Schurch crashed the ball up before the forwards took over a series of driving rucks which led to second-row Alex Hiom going over for an unconverted try.
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OVs then took the game to Royston trying to pull themselves level and there was some seriously big hits taking place during this period and this is when Jamie Green started to enjoy himself by turning over numerous OV balls to earn himself the Man of the Match award.
Despite Royston’s defensive heroics, OVs got a penalty right at the end of the half to equalise the scores at 8-8.
The second half started as the first had finished with OVs beginning to turn the screw and exert more pressure in the scrums while Royston began to use their line-out skills to combat that with Morris, Alford and Phillips all taking more than their fair share of ball against much bigger opponents.
Royston clearly began to tire as the second half wore on and OVs used their experience to score three clinical tries with two of them being converted, and send them through to the semi final.
