Shipston team suffer derby away reverse (From Evesham Journal)

Shipston team suffer derby away reverse

9:00pm Thursday 4th February 2010

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Evesham III 20, Shipston IV 8.

A MIXTURE of second and fourth team Shipston members travelled the short distance to the riverside setting to take on a well-balanced Evesham team.

The first-half was tight with play largely confined to the central areas of the pitch and pressure causing numerous turnovers and a high scrummage count.

With each side possessing only one main line-out jumper possession was keenly contested at the throw with Dave Bishop winning an even share of his own and the opposition’s ball.

Then the loss of centre Howard Boswell with a nasty looking head gash affected the balance of the Shipston side.

They opted to take on the home pack up front rather that spin the ball wide to use the threat of James Partridge and Ben Haynes on the wings. Rees Gidley’s driving aggression, supported by John Alexander at scrum-half, was the most likely source of a Shipston score.

It was that combination that eventually produced a deserved try late in the second-half.

A close-range try at the end of the first period eventually broke the deadlock to put Evesham ahead.

But Gary Flowers coolly slotted a penalty and just failed to put Shipston ahead with another (a crossbar rebound) at the start of the second-half.

During Shipston’s most sustained attacking spell, Evesham’s heavier pack began to dominate.

Shipston adopted a largely defensive attitude for the remainder of the match as Evesham grabbed the local bragging rights in this derby clash.

Shipston III 20, Harbourne III 7.

THE game started well enough for Shipston with Nick Briggs making an early break that should have led to a try but the home side were not clinical enough. The surprise came when Harborne pounced on an error and skipped through to score under the posts for a seven-point lead.

Shipston’s response was to go straight back down to the other end and eventually worked the ball to Lee Williams to score an unconverted try. At 7-5 down at half-time the Rams felt that they needed to be more positive and the scores would come.

As so often happens against third- team opposition Harbourne decided to kick their way out of trouble during the second period. They managed to kick the ball to Rams’ talismanic full-back Keith Hoskin.

He then set off on a jinking run that turned the Harbourne defence into attack as Shipston dominated the early exchanges of the second-half. The opening try of the second-half came after such a run as Shipston were 8-7 up at this point.

Hoskin then worked his magic to free Waters on the wing who scored in the corner. This was followed by a superb individual effort from Carl Hamilton who shrugged off the tackles and showed why he is such an asset to the team this season. The Rams ended the game in the asendancy and worthy winners.

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