Delight for Stapley as Rams run over OE’s
REDINGENSIANS captain Robbie Stapley hailed his side’s exceptional defence as they recorded their fifth successive victory with a dominant performance against a lacklustre Old Elthamians.
Five penalties from flyhalf Jacob Atkins and a first-half try from full-back Sam Guttridge were enough to give the Rams a thoroughly deserved victory as OEs were shut out in the second period – the first time they have not scored in a half of rugby for 16 games. Stapley told The Rugby
Paper: “We didn’t expect to dominate as much but I think the pressure we applied just squeezed the life out of OEs.
“We never felt threatened because our defence put so much pressure on them to forced errors.
“I’m immensely proud of the boys. We said all week that we had to have loads of energy in our defence and we did exactly that. We had a tough start to the season and we said we wanted to beat one of the top five sides and lay down a marker, and OEs are one of the title contenders.
“It happened last year when we won nine games in a row and the team developed from that. Now we have won five in a row and this victory will give us the confidence that we can beat the best sides in the division.”
Elthamians never recovered from an error-strewn first 30 minutes which saw the Rams open up a 16-0 lead thanks to three penalties from Atkins and an opportunist try by Guttridge after the home side failed to deal with Atkins’ cross-field kick.
Heavily under the cosh in the scrum and lineout for the majority of this match, the Old Boys were
made to pay dearly for countless dropped passes and knock-ons as they were knocked out of their stride by the smothering Rams defence, led by man-of-thematch centre Dan Sanders.
Chris Surman gave them hope when he dived on Tom White’s chip over the defence to score with virtually their first meaningful attack of the half, a minute from the interval.
Although OEs upped the tempo after the restart and enjoyed the majority of possession and territory, they never threatened to breach the Rams’ try-line as the visitors’ defence continued to swarm all over them.
Rams twice pounced on dropped passes to break out of defence and hit the home side on the counterattack which resulted in two further penalties from Atkins to complete an impressive victory.
OEs Director of Rugby Gavin Lach said: “Full credit to Redingensians, they chucked the kitchen sink at us and played very well, I have no complaints. They were the better side on the day.
“We were awful, we just didn’t turn up in the first half - we just kept dropping the ball or knocking on. I think it was a bit of a hangover from the Chinnor defeat last week.”