South Lord it over highflying Bromsgrove

Bromsgrove were entertained at Welford Road alongside the 2’s and 3’s and a host of vice presidents attending the first lunch of the season.

South were forced into a raft of changes that saw Glyn Devaney come into the side at full back, Chris Mark at openside flanker and Karl Truijens making his debut in the front row. Mike March resumed at blindside flanker and captain, Wes Cartwright moved to the right wing and Rich Lang belatedly took his place on the bench.

Bromsgrove took the game to South early on and opened the scoring with a straight forward penalty, although Mark Lord equalised soon after. Injustice quickly followed as firstly Mike March was penalised for retaliation after a Bromsgrove player dropped his knee into Chris Bale’s head. Bale was laid low for a number of minutes ( the Broad Street hooker suffered a similar fate although stitches were needed in last weeks game) while soon after Karl Truijens was yellow carded for a technical offence and Bromsgrove took the lead with another penalty.
Why do referees never see the original cheap shot offence? ( plenty of spectators witnessed it) while preferring to penalise the retaliation and the easier technical offences.
Bale let his scoring do the talking as he was at the core of a dynamic South rolling maul that rumbled in from 20 metres. He touched down wide on the left for an unconverted try.
South were now back to full strength and proceeded to take Bromsgrove apart, denying them any worthwhile possession in the loose and knocking down at will their attackers with some excellent pressing defence. From one of these outstanding defensive tackles Mark Lord was able to pick up run through the Bromsgrove defence side step the full back and go in to score under the posts. His conversion was a formality and South reached half time 15-6 in the ascendency.

South replaced Devaney and Dom Green with Rich Lang and Marcus Badham respectively at half time.

Lord struck again soon after half time as Bromsgrove tried to run the ball wide to score. This tactic backfired as Lord intercepted a floated pass to run in un-opposed from the half way line. Again his conversion was a formality as the green and white machine was purring and Bromsgrove’s heads went down.
Dan Robson replaced Truijens on the hour while Rich Lang made the running to put Wes Cartwright in the right hand corner. Lord’s splendid conversion sailed through the posts. Although Chris Mark was yellow carded for offside, defending one of the visitors few attacking moves, South were in complete control. Nick Childs then taunted the Bromsgrove defence before burning into the left hand corner while Matt Fisher completed the rout with another pacy intervention to score.
Both tries were converted by Lord.

Bromsgrove did, however, score a consolation converted try in injury time.

This display was probably the best so far this season. Certainly the defence was awesome with everybody making crucial hits. None were more effective than the Kris McFedries cover tackle to deny the visitors a score early in the first half while Sam Badham, Ben Antill and James Stapleford were so solid nearer the breakdown. The whole backline pressured Bromsgrove to such a degree making sure that we fed off their mistakes for once proving that the players new and old are buying into Steve Booth’s defensive system.
A job well done.
Another try scoring bonus point and 23 tries in the bag have been the defining aspect of the season so far while the defence goes from strength to strength. Long may it continue.

Team:

Devaney (Lang), Cartwright, Fisher, Smith, Childs, Lord, McFedries, Bale C, Mark C, March ©, Antill, Badham S, Stapleford, Green (Badham M), Truijens ( Robson)

Man of the Match: Mark Lord on the basis on his good match control from fly half and the small token of 23 points gleaned.