Hemel Stags vs Crusader Colts
Stags 12 - Colts 38
Hemel Stags:Celtic Crusaders
Half time 6 - 24
Full time Result 12 - 38
Team: Stephen Marshall, Michael Ayres, Kieron Dixon, Mustafa Ali, Courtney Watson, Wes Read, George Stevens, Cameron Furlong, Jack Kavanagh, Aaron Small, Tom Grange, Warren Grange, Callum Hurley, Dion Chapman, Erik Grimley
What a huge change a few weeks can make to a local sports team. Within the last month we have seen matches postponed due to bad weather, the opposition being unable to field a team squad and most recently Stags were also unable to field enough players to justify an away trip!
This weekend Stags had 17 eligible players present with another two new lads just awaiting their appropriate documentation before they too can join the fray, on a splendid condition pitch which is the envy of many much larger and more established Rugby League clubs.
The visitors “Celtic Crusaders” are based in South Wales and so this is a “local derby” for both of these satellite teams in this largely Northern dominated league. CC are right at the top of the table, with a large number of their players regulars in the Welsh National team, whilst Hemel Stags remain firmly rooted to the bottom of the league, so it looked on paper like a very one sided contest from the start.
The actual match was in fact very far from the anticipated walkover, as CC were very commendably held at bay by Stags for a full 12 minutes despite some high quality attacking play before CC forced over the first try that came from a penalty award. Stags response was to score themselves from 40m within 3 minutes. Because both tries were successfully converted, the scored were tied at 6 all and so they remained for the first quarter of the match (20 minutes). The quality and organisation of the Crusaders was brought to bare and they scored a further 4 tries in the remainder of the first half. The half time score of 6:24 did not really reflect either the effort provided by the Stags or indeed the nature of the match as the contest was very closely fought with the Stags coming close to scoring on a number of occasions.
The half time talk to Stags must have been of some assistance as the second half was also very strongly contested in each direction, with no further scores for the next 19 minutes of play. This semi deadlock was broken by Crusaders, when they used the platform of a penalty to force an unconverted try on the left wing. Again as in the first half Stags replied quickly, with a converted try of their own only 4 minutes later.
Crusaders scored both an unconverted try and a converted try in the last few seconds of the contest to close match out at 12:38, which in itself is still a respectable result for Hemel Stags. Given the truly demonstrated quality of the opposition, this was a very good match, so well done to every player involved. Remember that the Hemel Stags team is on average one year younger than their opposition, which is a massive difference at this stage of development.
The match was played in good nature and at great pace, Hemel Stags look forward to welcoming Crusaders again next season, well done!
Hemel Man of the Match: Aaron Small