Handsworth 12 – 27 Stafford

Stafford Colts travelled to Handsworth for the Staffs Colts Second Round Cup match on a cold and windy day. With the chilly condition, wind and heavy muddy pitch Stafford found it hard to get themselves going and struggled to play their normal fast open game. The conditions made it difficult to obtain any clean ball from both the scrums and the lineouts. It was 32 minutes before an attack out wide, put captain John Carr in for an unconverted try. The Stafford lads seemed to have found their rhythm and ran the ball at Handsworth from the restart seeing good handling from the backs allow Mitch Averis to use his pace to score in the corner. Stafford went into half time leading by 0 – 10 but having laboured hard in the conditions.

Stafford started the second period playing with the wind at their backs and immediately put Handsworth under pressure, they began to hold their own in the set pieces which in turn gave the backs reasonably clean ball. It was from a scrum that Dan Morrison picked up and drove forward allowing Josh Arnold through for the third try of the afternoon. However Handsworth were not going to just roll over putting Stafford under pressure in their own half and with the penalty count mounting against the visitors it was not long before the home side scored a converted try to get them back into the game. Once again Handsworth attacked from the restart forcing Stafford to defend from deep and make mistakes and it was from a Handsworth penalty that they opted to take the lineout and created a driving maul to score their second try and close to within 3 points. This seemed to wake up the Stafford team and from the restart Cal Jones stole the ball and the forwards drove at the Handsworth line who seemed to have stolen the ball back but it popped out of the ruck for Cal Lennon to pounce on it for another unconverted. With Handsworth tiring Stafford began to dominate in all areas and the forwards winning good clean ball for the backs to use and run at Handsworth forcing them to defend from deep within their own half. With Mitch Averis returning to the field providing blistering pace out wide it wasn’t long before he was offered the outside line which he took to outpace his opposite winger as well as the full back to go in under the posts for Stafford final try converted by Cal Heath. This was a hard fought game in difficult conditions for both teams. Stafford Colts now wait to see who they will play in the Semi Final of the Staffs Colts Cup.