South come through feisty local derby to record a win (unfortunately without a bonus point)

South entertained Syston at Welford Road in this latest N3M league encounter. A sizable crowd were entertained by the Under 12’s from both clubs before the game as the more elderly dignitaries met for lunch in the clubhouse.
Max Castrogiovanni made his first start this season for South with Lee Miller moving into the second row. Connor Smith and captain Luke Coltman returned from injury and suspension respectively. Rod McNaughton, Stu Bale and Matt Fisher made up the bench. Blustery and bright conditions were the order of the day with the pitch in good condition for early December.

As expected the match started at a pace with both packs tearing into each other trying to establish initial superiority. Syston probably had the better of the opening exchanges, but it was South who struck first with Max Castrogiovanni touching down wide on the left after some good work by Chris Bale. Mark Lord unluckily hit the far post with the conversion bouncing out rather than over.
South struck again soon after as Sam Greasley picked up a loose ball in defence and burned his way outside a bemused Syston defence, leaving defenders for dead and with afterburners on scored a scintillating try.
Lord converted.
Syston were in the wars as both Alex Rennie and Adam Nunney left the field with blood injuries to be joined by Paul Walsh and South’s Jack Hague for a bout of handbags as they saw yellow.
That man Greasley again burst out of defence, did a passable impression of Derek Redmond (400m Barcelona Olympics 1992 for younger readers) as his hamstring went in full stride. He did have the presence of mind to offload before going down with Lord and Will Keeling keeping the move going to put Connor Smith into the right hand corner for South’s third try of the afternoon. Lord was again narrowly wide with the conversion.
Greasley was replaced by Matt Fisher and the yellow card period for Hague and Walsh was extended unnecessarily as the referee played 49 minutes in the half.

The second half was an anticlimax for South as they allowed Syston to disrupt the flow of the game, especially at scrum time. Castrogiovanni was replaced by Stu Bale as Dan Robson saw yellow for an offence in the dark confines of the front row. Rod McNaughton entered the fray at the next scrum as Simon Johnson retired to the side line.
As at Mansfield, South butchered a number of clear cut try scoring chances either with poor decision making or wrong options. This enabled Syston to stay in the game and they were rewarded with a try from Brendan Coles finely converted by Ian Smith on the hour.
The whole Syston bench entered the game in search of fresh legs, but it was South who pressed in the latter stages in search of the bonus point gaining fourth try.
It wasn’t to be as the game petered out as the sun and the temperature went down.

South, again, lost the second half after establishing a sound lead and, in my opinion, didn’t employ the correct tactics in the latter part of the game. To subdue the combative Syston forwards, we needed to move the ball away from contact at every opportunity – its not as though we haven’t got any pace out wide!

Team: Culpin, Griffin, Smith, Keeling, Greasley(Fisher), Lord, McFedries, Bale C, Johnson, Castrogiovanni (Bale S), Miller, Hague, Bayley, Coltman ©, Robson (McNaughton)

Men of the Match: Chris Bale and Sam Greasley – what a try!