Stafford Colts A combined with Stafford u16’s to play a friendly Friday night match against local rivals Trentham.

The first half saw Stafford playing the majority of the Colts u17 players with the exception of Hugo Sutton who wanted to play on the occasion of his 18th birthday. Stafford had the majority of the territorial advantage and put Trentham under a lot of pressure through hard running and rucking from the forwards. Eventually the pressure Stafford were applying turned into points when a goal line clearance from Trentham dropped into the arms of Fin Osmant who ran it back to score under the posts, Seb Conaghan adding the conversion. Stafford continued to keep the pressure on Trentham who were struggling to get into the Stafford half of the pitch. Some loose play and a dropped ball on the Trentham line saw Will Smith dive on the bobbling ball to score Stafford’s second try after 26 minutes, Seb again adding the conversion. With time running out Fin Osmant gathered the ball in mid field and got up to speed to outpace the Trentham defence and score in the right-hand corner. The first half finished 19 – 0 to Stafford after a dominant first half display.

Stafford rang the changes in personnel at half time and introduced a number of the U16’s players to give the Colts a rest as there was a league game to play on the Sunday. Trentham came out of the blocks early in the 2nd half and scored after only 2 minutes. The tide had turned and Trentham were pilling on the pressure on the Stafford defence. The opposition scored two further tries in quick succession after 10 minutes by running their larger players out wide at the rucks. Although now well and truly in a different game to the first half Stafford introduced more U16’s to give everyone who had turned up game time and valuable experience of playing against Colts. The Stafford side defended with great energy and tenacity but when Trentham passed the ball wide the faster opposition wingers were able to get round the tiring Stafford defenders. Trentham ran in 3 more second half tries without Stafford adding to their first half points tally. The final score being 19 – 32 to Trentham.

It was defiantly a game of two half’s but valuable game time for the Colts u17’s players and a chance to show what they can do in a game to push for a slot in the Sunday team. The U16’s played well and gained valuable experience of playing a more structured attacking side such as Trentham. Unfortunately, Morgan was injured in a tackle on the very last play of the match which has resulted in a fracture to his arm, we wish him a speedy recovery. All in all it was a valuable game to play although we did not get the right result.

Well done boys, See you all at training
Mark