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Basingstoke triumph over rivals
Basingstoke 41pts v Winchester 8 pts Basingstoke playing their first league game of 2002 put rivals Staines to the sword and overwhelmed a poor Staines side by six tries, four conversions and a penalty to a try and a penalty. The home side continued their recent run of good form by dominating the early exchanges and went ahead with a simple Ian Calder penalty. Playing an expansive game from the start Stoke always looked that they could break through at will but Staines capitalised on some handling errors and equalised through a Shaun Terry penalty. Stoke though were starting to step on the gas and after ten minutes a fine movement put Chris Norton away and the Australian's pace was far too much for the visitors and he scored halfway out, Calder missing the conversion. Staines had a rare chance to reduce the arrears but Terry missed a penalty. After this Basingstoke dominated the game and a brilliant length of the field move with the final pass going to Phil Della-Savina to score under the posts, Calder converting in the twentieth minute. But soon after Della-Savina was sin-binned for the second consecutive week for an offence at the ruck but this seemed to galvanised Stoke to greater heights and a superb individual try by centre Neil Taylor converted by Calder stretched the lead to 22-3. In a game becoming increasingly niggly the Staines No 6 Rob Walker was also sin-binned. Half-time Basingstoke 22pts v Winchester 3 pts As
for the Winchester game, Basingstoke put the game out of reach with a
great try in the first minute of the second half which resulted in Gareth
Jones diving to score in the corner after some good ruck ball was put
along the dangerous Basingstoke back division. The game descended for
a period after this with the referee being prominent with the whistle
and the homeside failing to raise their game over the visitors and a lapse
in concentration allowed the Staines left winger Ben Moore to struggle
over in the corner. Finally Stoke stirred themselves out of their lethargy
and with the home sides forwards becoming more and more dominant it was
a matter of time before they got back into scoring ways. They had to wait
to the 27th minute when from another good ruck ball the ball was fed to
skipper Richard Baker in the centre who glided through the middle and
scored under the posts without a finger being laid on him, Calder converting.
Soon after a great move involving Gareth Jones down the left hand side
of the pitch resulted in Chris Norton using his pace to power over and
Calder kicked the conversion to complete the scoring. Man of the match Ash Riley NEXT GAME Jan 12th away to Norwich (League) ko 2:00 pm
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