Rugby Review (From Stroud News and Journal)

Rugby Review

Western Counties North Yatton RFC 26 Stroud RFC 23

PART of the rebuilding work at Stroud must encompass the right mindset, willingness to graft and deal intelligently with over-eager intimidation.

Yatton won this game with those merits after Julian Harry had struck an early penalty and converted Lyle Robertsons' try.

Yatton were prepared to mix it and lost two players to the sin-bin during the first-half.

Stroud sat back as Dave Keating helped himself to a couple of simple penalties and a drop goal at the death of the first half to leave Yatton 9 - 8 ahead.

Stroud had blustered away and destroyed Yatton at scrummages where Andy Jarrett's presence was key.

Lineouts were also comfortable and both James Bashford and Jesse Owens proved influential. Somehow though Stroud didn't string many penetrating moves together.

The arrival of torrential rain did nothing to help Stroud's cause as ball spillages and a massive penalty count helped Yatton dog their way through.

Chris Harris meandered through Strouds' defence for a soft try that Steve Osborn converted.

He also added a penalty and a conversion to Kevin Penfold's effort mid way through the second-half where once again missed tackles were to blame.

Eighteen points adrift the cavalry finally arrived. Harry struck a penalty, John Farr then showed class, ingenuity and speed to take a quick free-kick just inside Yatton's half and outpaced their defence for a good try, Harry added the extras.

Yatton were playing it clever and disrupted Strouds' attempts to make the game flow and with time ticking away Stroud were hurrying their moves.

Although an injury time penalty try brought them within a score it was simply too late and Yatton celebrated their scalp at the final whistle.

Stroud face another 20 games such as this and need to get streetwise because despite efforts to ping the ball around, and they are fully capable of that, opposing teams are unlikely to let them.

STROUD travel to Grove on Saturday in the Intermediate Cup.

THE Nomads gained a fantastic win, 17 - 15, against Bridgewater seconds in the South West Merit table. Bridgewater play in National Three South, some three divisions above Stroud, so this was an excellent pre-cursor to their visit to Old Pats (again three divisions above them) next weekend. Although no fixture is yet confirmed, Stroud Gothamites may have a game at Fromehall Park.