Pinner U14s Keep The Pressure On At The Top

Sunday saw a top of the table clash between Pinner U14s and Twickenham U14s with both teams knowing a win would put daylight between them. The conditions were excellent for rugby with the pitch soft under foot after all the recent rain.

Both teams started strongly, with fearless tackling and aggressive challenges at the breakdown and most of the game being played in the middle of the park.

The breakthrough came after six minutes when Pinner recycled clean ball from the breakdown and the ball was spun wide to the left giving Ben Stone a clear run in to score the first try half way between the posts and the touchline. The metronomic boot, now with a new kicking tee, of Freddie Hart added the conversion, 7 nil Pinner.

Buoyed by the try Pinner gathered the restart and worked their way back to the half way line with Twickenham working hard at the breakdown to turn over the ball. After some strong work from the Pinner pack the ball was again passed down the Pinner back line to Kai Gordon who ran in under the posts having broken a couple of tackles on the way. An easy conversion for Freddie and Pinner were ahead 14 nil.

The second try broke Twickenham’s resistance and Pinner started to dominate the game in all areas and it wasn’t long before try number three was scored. Pinner pack again recycled clean ball for scrumhalf Louis George to run down the blind side to score wide out near the left touchline. Unfortunately Freddie was unable to added the extras. Pinner 19 Twickenham 0.

An excellent catch from the restart by Charlie Gascoine set Pinner romping forward again. It took three defenders to bring Charlie down close to half way and out of the pursuing ruck appeared Joseph Burling with the ball. He set off on a jinking run dodging two or three tackles leaving him one on one with the fullback who surrendered and let Joseph score Pinner’s fourth and bonus point try under the post to which Freddie added the conversion. Pinner were now 26 ahead as we headed for half time.

However, Pinner weren’t finished there. Charlie again took a clean catch from the restart this time shipping the ball outside him where it eventually arrived in Kai’s arms and he set off with his after burners blazing running around the outside of the Twickenham players scoring closed to the posts. Unusually, Freddie missed a relatively simple opportunity to add the further two points and at half time Pinner were leading 31-0.

The second half was a lot tougher with Pinner making substitutions to give every player some game time and Twickenham starting to give their bigger boys more of the ball in an attempt to make ground against a Pinner defence which resolutely stayed strong with a ‘you shall not pass’ attitude we have come to see and expect from the boys in the past two seasons.

Pinner managed two more tries in the second half both from strong runs by Kai but only one was converted and the final score was 43-0 against a side the boys had expected to give them more of a game than they did.

The win moves Pinner 5 points ahead of Bishop Stortford and 6 points ahead of Twickenham, who both have a game in hand over our boys, giving them potentially 10 points each from their final 2 games. However, this will be irrelevant if Pinner can achieve a bonus point win against Saracens B on 23 March as they will be promoted with 25 points.