Birth Certificates Please!

Brentwood again came racing out of the blocks in the opening five minutes after a lovely catch and run from Rob from the kick off. The forwards recycled quickly and the backs produced a dazzling move with good hands which saw Jake Eagleton, round on the loop, over for the first try. Stuart Frith kicked the conversion, 7-0 Brentwood.
Unfortunately soon after the try play had to be stopped when Jordan Hill took a crunching tackle from Westcliff and went down with a potential back injury. Fortunately however it was not serious and play resumed.
Soon after play resuming Brentwood worked their way deep into the Westcliff 22 where eventually William Bassenger, devastating from a metre, picked up and drove over. The conversion was fairly straight forward and Stuart kicked it, 14-0 Brentwood.
Brentwood continued to pressurise until the end of the quarter but the Westcliff defence held very firm.
In the second quarter Westcliff were immediately under pressure again as from the restart Chris Doble put in a great chase and hit his man hard. The ball spilled lose and a good pick up and run by Matt Smith put Adam Mathias over in the corner. Stuart was unlucky to hit the post with the tricky conversion, 19-0 Brentwood.
Westcliff put up a lovely high restart enabling their players to get underneath it for a chance to compete but Ollie caught it very well under a lot of pressure. From then on however the play got quite messy with the ball going lose quite often and the score remained the same at half time.
After half time Westcliff pressurised Brentwood and very nearly scored when the ball was chipped through however Jake managed to collect and clear well. Following his clearance, Jake made a good run and put Chris Doble over near the posts. Stuart again converted, 26-0.
After a stern talking to from the ref following some punches being throw, Brentwood mauled their way to the line where they were just held up. Eventually, after a lot of strong defending from Westcliff, Chris McCarthy was bundled over the line. Stuart missed the conversion leaving the score 31-0 to Brentwood.
The last score of the game came after some strong running from the wing Sam and also from Joel Ison which again took Brentwood to within metres of the try line. A maul was set up and this time did make it over the line although the forwards were some what miffed when a back, Joel Ison, emerged with the ball to claim the score! Stuart kicked the conversion and the score was 38-0.
The final quarter belonged to Westcliff as they attacked the Brentwood line again and again leaving Brentwood to keep defending but the defence held strong until the final whistle despite enormous pressure from Westcliff.

A lineout during the Westcliff Game (click on picture)

From the kick off Brentwood were raring to go. They must have all eaten their weetabix that morning as within the first minute Jake Eagleton had crossed the line for his first try of the match. Stuart Frith made it the dream start by converting, 7-0 Brentwood.
The next try came from Joel Ison, playing at fullback, who crashed over the line, Stuart again converted making it 14-0 with only a few minutes gone.
The third try of the match was from our high scoring prop, William Bassenger, who managed to avoid running into the posts this time. He assures me he made a dazzling run from his own 22 and was so fast I didn’t notice him run past me in a blur of speed. From where I was standing it looked suspiciously like he smashed over from about 5 metres in the usual fashion…Stuart again converted, 21-0 Brentwood.
There was some nice slick play with both backs and forwards running nice lines and linking well, Chris Doble in particular making some strong runs in both halves. Good play eventually resulted in Jake’s 2nd try of the game with Stuart again kicking the conversion leaving the score 28-0 in Brentwood’s favour.
The fifth try was scored by Sam Morgan. From the kick off and some neat pop passing he barged his way through a couple of tackles and was away, beating the Stanford fullback to the line before he was tackled. Stuart kicked the conversion, 35-0.
Chris Doble scored the sixth try, again in typical Chris fashion taking a few players over the line with him. Stuart’s difficult conversion dropped just short. 40-0.
Jake scored his third (another jug Bill, I hope you realise we’re keeping a tally!) with some strong running and Stuart kicked the conversion, 47-0.
The last try of the half came from Joel who moved into the line to take the ball at pace on the wing and left everyone else for dead to dot down in the corner. Stuart’s conversion was accurate but just short, 52-0 at half time.
At this point I would like to say that it was very admirable how, despite being 52-0 down, Stanford didn’t give in and came out in the 2nd half and made life difficult for us.
The second half began with Keith putting on all of our substitutes at once. We wonder if maybe he’s been watching Sven Goran Eriksson who also seems to sub half the team at once…
Soon Matt Smith crossed the line having been a persistent pest to Stanford through out the game. For one of the smaller lads he seemed to revel in launching himself at some of Stanford’s bigger players although occasionally he did bounce off there was no faulting the effort. Stuart kicked the conversion from the touchline, a very difficult kick, putting the score at 66-0.
Jake went in for his fourth try not long after as the ball was kept alive well by off loading in the tackle and a gap opened in the centre for Jake to take advantage of. Stuart again kicked the conversion, 66-0.
The next player to feature on the score sheet was Daniel Tomlinson who scored a nice try with some good linking play with Adam Mathias who was playing in an unfamiliar position on the wing. Stuart missed the straight forward conversion but can be forgiven as had otherwise had a great day with the boot!
Chris Doble scored his second try and Brentwood’s 12th when he broke straight down the middle and went racing over the line, Stuart making no mistake with the conversion, 78-0.
The 13th and final try of the match was scored by Jake for his 5th of the match. After some more good play and passing he broke down the wing and ran round the defence before side stepping one of the Stanford players in the in goal area to put the ball down under the sticks. No need for show boating Jake! Stuart kicked the conversion, leaving him with a personal haul of 20 points in conversions, to leave the final score 85-0 to Brentwood.
A quick mention must go to Matt Gray who had a good game, making some strong runs but also took one of the restarts in a true Martin Corry style by plucking the ball out of the air rather than waiting for it to come to him.
We’d also like to thank the referee, provided by Stanford due to the Essex nominee failing to show, having only been notified he was going to have to ref at 11 o’clock and for refereeing very well and fairly.
A joint decision was made late in the game by Sam and William, having been subbed by Sven, to slide off for an early shower thus securing the limited amount of hot water, who said forwards are thick?!

Round 1: Caption Round

What is Miss Haslem describing to (there's only one) Ian Dennis? Answers in comments please.