Stafford welcomed Dudley Kingswinford colts to the county ground for a league fixture on a very windy and wet Sunday afternoon.

Stafford kicked off playing into a very strong headwind and Dudley K were immediately onto the front foot kicking for field position into the far right hand corner. Time after time Stafford tried to get out of their own half firstly by kicking for touch and then by running the ball from behind their own try line but DK kept putting the ball behind Stafford when play broke down. Eventually DK opened the scoring with a well worked try in the right hand corner but a single try was a poor return for the amount of territory they had enjoyed. As time was running out in the first half the ball found Dan Poultney in space on the left wing and he made a storming run into the DK half. Some last ditch tackling from DK prevented him going the full length but Stafford were able to recycle the ball and get Will Roue free in the center of the pitch to finish the move off with a try under the posts. James Milan added the conversion and somehow Stafford finished the first half leading the match 7 – 5.

The second half saw Stafford playing with the wind and they took control of the match. Dan Poultney followed up his barn storming run from the first half with a second from the half way line but this time he beat five DK defenders to score a scintillating try under the posts. Connor added the simple conversion. Then from a lineout on the DK five meter line Ben Dodd gathered the ball and drove over to score Stafford’s third try. The bonus point win was accomplished when Seb Conaghan, making his colts debut off the bench at scrum half, put Will Roue through a gap in centre field who then ran unopposed to score his second try of the game under the posts. The scoring was completed when James Milan put Seb through a gap who then scored under the posts. Final score being 35 – 5 to Stafford with all five tries being converted by James Milan and Connor McLaughlin in difficult kicking conditions.

Stafford won the match but made hard work of it especially in the first half. The match was not allowed to flow by the referee and that combined with the difficult weather conditions made it quite a frustrating afternoon. It was a good league win but lessons need to be learned especially from the first half when Stafford struggled to execute exit strategies correctly and kept giving the ball back to DK through silly penalties and a lack of composure with the ball. However, it was a good league win and there were some good performances from the likes of Harrison Durham, making his return to the team after injury, Ben Dodd, Will Roue, Connor McLaughlin and the outstanding Dan Poultney.

It was also good to see some of the u16’s making their Colts debuts and the support from the stands for the team was fantastic. Well done Seb Conaghan, Joben Corcoran and Chris Cornes.

See you all at training
Mark