Another poor performance away from home

Tabard 39 pts v Basingstoke 15 pts

Stoke suffered another away defeat at Tabard in a lack lustre performance against a side that played a tight rolling maul game and relied on their fly half Rob Colborne, on loan from Saracens, to put the ball in front of his forwards. Stoke were not helped by some ill discipline and a fical referee that saw Stoke receive two yellow cards and were punished on both occasions by Tabard scoring a converted try each time Stoke were down to 14 men. Tabard scored as early as the 3rd minute when a kick through from their fly half enabled the wing to score and converted. On 16 minutes St. Bernard was yellow carded and Tabard took full advantage by scoring a converted try within 2 minutes of him being off the field. The next 20 minutes was a tame passage of play with neither side dominating any period of play. Stoke attempted to play running rugby but lacked the penetration to make any inroads. On 35 minutes Stoke got their 1st points with a penalty from Calder. In injury time Tabard scored an unconverted try from a rolling maul before Calder scored a penalty on the half time whistle to go in 19-6 down.

Stoke started the 2nd half with a penalty in the 1st minute to offer hope but this was immediately dashed when Tabard scored two penalties on 2 and 6 minutes. Stoke had their best passage of play and had 5 minutes of pressure in Tabard's 22 but were only rewarded with a Calder penalty on 12 minutes. During this period man of the match Ryder was prominent in open play and Chapman again winning a good supply of ball. On 20 minutes Stoke had Chapman yellow carded and from the resultant penalty Tabard kicked into Stoke's 22 and from the line out scored a converted try from another rolling maul before passing the ball out. Whilst this put the game beyond Stoke they did try to penetrate the Tabard defence with running rugby when perhaps they should of put the ball behind their opponents particularly when Tabards full back was yellow carded on 25 minutes for Calder to score his 5th penalty. On 29 minutes Tabard rounded off the scoring with another converted try from a rolling maul to make the final score 39-15 to the home team. The worrying aspect of the game was that collectively none of the players performed to their capability and the pace of the game was slower than the team showed last week and that all of the points were from the boot of Calder with no tries being scored.

After Calder added "We never got off the starting blocks. The preparation was good but mentally we did not perform. The difference was mainly their rolling maul and us conceding tries when down to 14 men."

NEXT GAME Saturday 8th November home to Weston-Super-Mare,National 3 South.

link to RFU site