Paviors 31 Southwell 21
This weekend Pavs completed their extended pre-season preparations with a solid win against near neighbours Southwell RFC.
On quite a sultry afternoon at a crowded Burntstump, it was Southwell who kicked off. Pavs did not field the ball cleanly, but kept it in hand and moved it to the width with quick hands. Centre Dan Stokes cut a great line before sprinting in untouched to give Pavs the opening score with one minute on the clock. As the game settled down, Southwell came more into the game and were rewarded with a try of their own on six minutes to go in front at 5-7. Three minutes later, Pavs struck back when full back Ollie Anderson deftly finished off a fine move down the right hand and with the George Billam extras gave Pavs the lead back at 12-7. On twenty minutes prop Tom Ryan suffered a knock which brought Conner Tomlinson on in his stead. With seven minutes of the half left, young scrum half pounced on a loose Southwell ball to go in between the posts and with additional extras from Billam extend Pavs lead to 19-7 at the break.
Minutes into the second half, Pavs again broke free, with fly half George Billam sprinting on to the final ball of a skilful passing movement to score before adding the extras himself and give Pavs quite an emphatic 26-7 lead. Southwell then made a real effort to redress matters and scored following an extended period of possession to take the score to 26-14 with half an hour to go. Pavs wrought the changes with Tom Ryan re-emerging, Owen Evans replacing Cole Mangham and Kaine Johnson taking a break and giving youngster Connor Burney a go. As these things go a couple of cramps and knocks saw Mangham come back instead of scrum half Jack Stanford and Conner Tomlinson replacing Tom Ryan. This rather disrupted fifteen minutes saw Southwell gain a lot of momentum. Pavs defence was tested severely, but remained resilient throughout and denied a score. On seventy six minutes, Ollie Anderson went in for his second try following another sweeping movement from the backs to extend Pavs lead to 31-14. Connor Burney then found himself yellowed and Southwell battled for a score as the game drifted into six minutes of overtime. They were rewarded with this score which was the last play to bring the final score being 31-21.
Pavs now go into next week’s first league game at Derby RFC, with a building sense of confidence, but also an awareness that there is still work to be done. Kick off at Derby is 3.00pm - all support is very much welcomed by the lads, so please make an effort to get across to Haslam’s Lane next Saturday 26th September.
Squad
1.Dan Hyams
2.Owen Taylor (C) +
3.Tom Ryan
4.Tom Platt ++
5.Kaine Johnson
6.Kyle Burney +
7.Matt Molyneux +
8.Phil Eggleshaw +
9.Jack Stanford (1try) +
10.George Billam (1 try, 3c) +
11.Josh Mallett ++
12.Doug Billam +
13.Dan Stokes (1 try) +
14.Cole Mangham +
15.Ollie Anderson (2 tries) +
16.Owen Evans +,++
17.Conner Tomlinson +
18.Connor Burney +
+ Home Grown
++ New Signing Debut
Nigel Youl
(Pavs 1st XV Manager)
