Stoke lose at Dingle's 21-20!


This was a harsh way for Stoke to all but lose their National league status by losing by one point in a game they should of won. The game was lost by two periods of 5 minutes in each half that allowed the home side to score 18 of their 21 points and another indicator that Stoke must focus for the whole 80 minutes. Whilst late changes did not help, losing both Chapman and Drawbridge, the game saw the return of Ross Stirling and the inclusion from the start of Chris Hampson, both of which had good games. On what was a very heavy pitch, not helped by a hail storm at kick off, Stoke performed very well in the scrums and had their fair share of the line out possession. When Stoke played to the patterns they have worked at in training they controlled the game but on several occasions the did make some wrong options that put themselves under pressure. Stoke got off to a flying start with a penalty awarded on 32 seconds in front of the home team's posts that Calder converted to give an early 3-0 lead. Unfortunately from the re-start Stoke made two mistakes to give the home team a penalty which they converted.Stoke then seemed to allow their opponents to control matters and conceded too many penalties to give the ball away. The period of play in the 1st half from 15 to 20 minutes was when Stoke conceded a penalty and an unconverted try to trail 11-3 and were fortunate not to be further punished as a penalty was also missed. This if anything spurred Stoke into playing their own brand of rugby and for the 1st time in the match started to the better rugby. As a result Stoke had many phases of play in the home sides 22 and were rewarded for their efforts with a catch and drive from a line out for Appleby to go over and Calder to add a difficult conversion to trail 11-10 on the half hour mark.. Still more pressure from Stoke was again rewarded with a penalty which Calder converted to retake the lead 13-11 which was the half time score.

Stoke started the second half poorly, as the home side were reduced to 14 men with their number 12 yellow carded on half time, and conceded a penalty on 2 minutes and a converted try on 6 to trail 21-13. Ten minutes into the second half and as Ding's centre returned so their number 8 had a 10 minute sin bin. Stoke now started to play the better rugby and put together some good passages of play and eventually crossed the line for a try for Buckland converted by Calder to trail by one point on 20 minutes. This created a tense final quarter with Stoke being the dominant side. Much of this period was spent in Ding's 22 but on several occasions Stoke gave away silly penalties to allow the home side to clear. On 35 minutes a wonderful passage that saw the ball recycled at least 12 times and a glorious chance was spurned with the try line begging. Still Stoke went forward and were awarded a difficult penalty opportunity on 39 minutes which stand in captain asked Calder to kick for goal. Calder stepped up and with Stoke supporters having all fingers crossed Calder missed his only kick of the day. In the final minute Stoke continued to apply pressure but could not score.

After Calder added "The boys showed great character particularly for the last 30 minutes. We played some good rugby to-day but also has lapses of concentration at times. Whilst we lost to-day we have the opportunity to take on the leaders next week and the Hampshire cup final to look forward to."

Team: Northcote, Holmes, Buckland, Roeske, Cullum, Calder, Vincent, Young, Evans, Hobden, Stirling, Wilson, Hampson, Appleby, St. Bernard, Subs not used: Buttle, White, Murdoch.

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