Stafford were quick out of the blocks and immediately put a young Shrewsbury side under pressure and scored from a driving maul following a lineout on the opposition 5m line after only 5 minutes, Charlie Kirby scoring the try. Following the kickoff Stafford rampaged towards the Shrewsbury line once again. Stafford were awarded a scum 10m from the Shrewsbury line where Charlie Kirby broke from the base and then following on from a series of rucks dove over to register his second try of the match, Seb Conaghan adding the simple conversion. All the play was still in the Shrewsbury half and they were struggling to contain the hard running of the Stafford forwards. Following another set of infringements Stafford again found themselves with a lineout on the Shrewsbury 5m line and the subsequent driving maul saw Charlie Kirby score his hattrick try of the match within the opening 20 minutes. Stafford then missed a series of opportunities for the backs to get on the score sheet when breaks from Colton, Ollie Croft, Joben and Seb all failed to find the final pass and they let Shrewsbury off the hook. Half time came with a score of 0 – 17 to Stafford.

Stafford made changes at half time and the dominance and control the team showed in the first half seemed to disappear and Shrewsbury started to play their own looser running game. Half way through the second half and following a series of missed tackles from Stafford, Shrewsbury scored their first converted try of the game. Then Shrewsbury were reduced to 14 players due to injury and so Stafford withdrew No.8 Charlie Kirby to keep the numbers even. With time running out and the match won Stafford failed to stop the final Shrewsbury attack and the home side scored their second try. Final score was a win for Stafford 12 – 17.

It was a strange game with Stafford clearly being the better team on the day but failing to convert first have dominance into a significant winning score. The team scored all their points in the first 20 minutes with controlled structured play but then a series of sloppy handling errors and missed opportunities seemed to derail the team and give the opposition encouragement. However, it was the first time in a number of seasons that Stafford had won against a traditionally strong Shrewsbury side so the win should give the Colts side encouragement for the upcoming league games. Also a big well done to Charlie Kirby for scoring a hattrick of tries.

So some things to work on in training boys especially the handling, well done and we will see you in the week ahead.
Mark