Stafford Colts v Leek Colts - 18.11.23

Stafford had a scare against an understrength Leek side before eventually getting back to winning ways.
With a key league clash against Luctonians next weekend, the home side were looking to put in a big performance after coming off second best in their Friday night game less than 24 hours before.
And with the visitors having to borrow Stafford players to make up their 15, the omens were looking good for the Colts.
They got off to a flyer after five minutes when Seb Conaghan fed the ball to Olly Croft - in a move straight from the training ground - and nobody was stopping the powerful centre from 10 metres out. Conaghan added an easy conversion.
But the visitors replied almost instantly. A fumble and turnover in midfield allowed Leek to grab valuable yards. Then a quickly taken penalty inside the 22 allowed them to level the scores.
Stafford showed the greater attacking intent and it was probably a surprise that they had to wait until the 20th minute to go ahead. This time Misa Veramu the beneficiary of a neat penalty that was worked out to Marley Thomas. The wing unable to quite get there on his own but Veramu followed up for an unconverted try.
They extended the lead before the half hour mark when an intelligent kick by Conaghan was chased by Olly Croft who nailed the covering defender, earning a line-out from only five metres out. The line-out was well executed and hooker Ashton Guy touched down with Conaghan adding the two points.
Virtually from the kick off Leek hit back and Stafford will be disappointed to see a runner go 25 metres across the pitch and then score under the posts - making the game 19-14.
A couple of minutes later and the Colts found themselves inexplicably going into half time 19-21 down. Danger seemed to have passed when they rescued the position after Conaghan had a kick charged down. But from a goal line drop out, the fly half sent a poor kick straight into touch - and from an uncontested five yard scrum the visitors made no mistake this time.
Croft and the impressive Charlie Kirby came out firing immediately after the restart and that, along with some substitutions, seemed to set the tone for the next 35 minutes.
There are few certainties in life - death, taxes, and a Jack Raine try - or tries. It took only a few minutes from the young centre’s introduction to take the game away from a tiring Leek.
First he cut through the defence leaving five players grasping at air as he sprinted in from 30 metres. And only seconds later a Conaghan run split the defence and his pass found Raine on the outside - with the inevitable outcome. Scrum half Dylan Shrehorn added the conversion. As a footnote, just to show he is human, moments later Raine did fumble a ball on the wing - which if he had caught, would have probably seen his hat-trick.
Stafford had some breathing space at 31-21 but again it didn’t last long. From a Leek attack on the right, they were saved by the touch judge’s flag - only for play to eventually switch to the other wing where the visitors got their final try. The conversion was missed.
Finally, the game was put to bed when the quick thinking scrum-half turned flanker, Sam Edwards took a quick penalty. He still had plenty to do but the visitors could not stop him as he burst away - and Shrehorn added the final two points of the game.
There was still time for the visitors to go down to 14 men when Shrehorn was needlessly hit late with around five minutes left on the clock - making it easy for the home side to see the game out.

Coaches Comments
We played 2 fixtures in less than 24 hours - some frustrations from us but overall a very positive weekend for Stafford Colts. 35 lads played rugby for colts this weekend with 3 of our players have only just started playing rugby - Tom, Shayan and Logan who were an integral part of our games. We as coaches couldn’t be prouder of all of the lads, their bonding as a squad is quite unique and this means more than anything. Also, a big thank you to our parents for their support of the squad and of us as coaches.