South leave it late before overcoming Broad Street

South Leicester visited the excellent Broad Street ground on a warm spring afternoon determined to keep up the pressure at the top of N3M. The only changes in personnel from the Luton game were Matt Fisher resuming on the left wing with Chris Mark and Jack Hague joining Len Fincham on the bench.

On a large, firm pitch South struck first with Mark Lord converting an early penalty goal, which was immediately cancelled out by a Street equalising penalty. Captain Mike March was yellow carded at that penalty breakdown for retaliation after some home side skulduggery – one of many such incidents during the game. To be fair Broad Street then put together some slick rugby resulting in South conceding two converted tries and another penalty. Sam Badham then responded with a fine driving try with his forward colleagues in support. Mark Lord converted. Unfortunately South lost Chris Bale to a leg injury, soon after, while pressing for a further score – Chris Mark being introduced into the game. Broad Street extended their lead with a further penalty just before the break to make the score 20pts to 10 in the home side’s favour.

Stiff words were said to the South players at the break by coaches Ian Smith and Steve Booth.
It seemed to do the trick as South came out and took the game to the hosts with a series of forward drives and penetrative three-quarter moves lead by Gareth Clarke and Nick Griffin. Two Broad Street players were sin binned in that period and Griffin capitalised by scoring with Lord adding the extras. Not to be outdone Street scored a penalty and a converted try to further their lead as Sam Badham saw yellow. Stu Bale was then replaced by debutant Jack Hague. With both teams back to 15 men and South down by 13 points the visitors eventually turned the tables scoring again via Josh McLaurin this time from a series of scrums as South were camped on the home sides line. Lord again added the conversion.
From then on it was all South as the home teams heads dropped. South attacked from everywhere moving the ball wide at every opportunity with Connor Smith, Phil Daffern and the poacher in chief Matt Fisher to the fore.
It was that man Fisher who finished off a flowing move running around his marker and touching down wide on the left. Mark Lord stepped up and landed a fine conversion to take South into the lead with six minutes left on the clock. South applied further pressure and scored again through Fisher as again he tortured his marker touching down after a smart grubber kick into the in goal area. Lord’s conversion narrowly missed from a similar wide position. Len Fincham replaced James Stapleford for the last throes of the game as South negotiated the final minutes for victory. The larger than normal South faithful then went wild. They probably outnumbered the home crowd although, one more than senior South member, probably needs to take his foot out of his mouth and apologise to some of the players after some early criticism. The majority of the supporters are there to support the team regardless of the outcome.

The South players to a man need to be congratulated for getting themselves out of a big hole and moving onto victory. Their collective spirit after a less than average start needs to be applauded. The man of the match award therefore goes to all the members of the squad and coaches who did a great job to achieve victory under considerable duress.
The home sides website intimated that they pressed the self destruct button in the latter stages – I’d like to think, however, it was South’s superior desire and resolute attitude that eventually won the day!

Team: Griffin, Daffern, Clarke, Smith, Fisher, Lord, McFedries, Bale C (Mark C), March ©, McLaurin, Bale S (Hague), Stapleford (Fincham), Green, Bayley.

Congratulations to Gareth Clarke and Matt Fisher for making the Midlands Under 20’s squad – although how can the latter only be on the bench!
Commiserations to Josh McLaurin and Marcus Badham.

Report Phil Lord