Stafford Colts v Bromsgrove Colts - 5.11.23

One of the only positives for the home side to take from the match was that this was a ‘friendly’ - so no league position or points at stake.
It couldn’t have started better when Stafford took the lead within the first couple of minutes. Nobody told Harry Woolman that it was a ‘friendly’ - as after being thwarted on a first attempt to barge through, he wasn’t going to let anyone stop him with his second go to register the opening try. Seb Conaghan couldn’t add the extra points.
They extended the lead on ten minutes. Matt Turner looked set to over with a strong run - but when he was stopped captain DJ Clements was on hand to drive powerfully through the middle, leaving Conaghan to get the easy conversion.
The home side were 12-0 up and seemingly coasting - epitomised by a lovely forward move where first Callum Stanley went on a now traditional trademark charge. He found fellow prop Ben Thomas who broke a couple of tackles and offloaded to vice-captain Will Smith who fed the ball out wide. The promising move eventually faded out having a glimpse of what the home support could expect for the rest of the game.
But it wasn’t to be. A series of infringements, complemented by a number of handling errors, let Bromsgrove back in. And on 25 minutes they made the most of the Stafford’s indiscretions to push over for a try - and take us into the first break 12-5.
Minutes after the restart the scores narrowed when another penalty was punished with the visitors taking the three points. It was no surprise that a dropped pass led to Bromsgrove grabbing the lead. From this latest mistake they managed to move the ball through the back line and take advantage of missed tackles to score out wide.
The Colts regained the lead when Conaghan was impeded after a kick through and took an easy three points under the posts. That lead didn’t last long - from the restart it was a familiar story. Infringement, penalty, and from a kick 35 metres out Bromsgrove went into the final third a point ahead.
They extended the lead in the 70th minute when they battered the home defence on the line before going over for a converted try. A couple of minutes later they put the match beyond Stafford’s reach with yet another penalty.
That may have been the wake up call the home side required and for the first time since the opening exchanges they took control of proceedings. It was from a lengthy bout of possession that they set up a number of phases before feeding the ball to the backs - and nobody was going to stop Finn Osmant from just over ten metres out as he crashed through tackles. Dylan Shrehorn kicked the conversion which gave Stafford brief hope of coming back - but they were to be the final points of the match.
It could have been a different result had Aidan Barker not been adjudged to have just gone over the dead ball line as he won a foot race to ground the ball. But in the end Stafford could hardly argue with the result in a match where their penalty count was too high and hurt them by allowing the visitors to rack up plenty of points - as well as preventing the Colts from scoring when in good positions.

Coaches Comments:
It was a bad day at the office. They wanted it more than us, they had more passion and some of our players had their worst game so far. It was very disappointing and we have spoken about not believing certain matches would be easy - because the minute you have that mindset that is when you lose games.
We conceded 16 penalties - six or seven were for not releasing. That’s because we were not first to the ruck and they were more aggressive. We have lost too many games at home and this ground should be our fortress - so we have to make it that way.
That said, Harry Woolman and Finn Osmant were the exceptions for an otherwise poor performance. And we reacted well in the last 15 minutes but unfortunately that was too little too late.