1st XV match reports

National League Three South

Clifton 12 London Scottish 44

ANOTHER impressive result sent Scottish top of the table, after a strong second half performance more than made up for a slow start.

Scottish are now the only side with four bonus points to add to their four wins, but the top four teams are otherwise inseparable - and in the next four games Scottish play the other three.

However, if Scottish have been guilty of taking their foot off the pedal in previous games, securing the four-try bonus point early and not scoring as heavily in the second half, this time they reversed the pattern: they started sluggishly and went in at the break only a point ahead, but then grabbed five tries to finish emphatic winners.

Clifton had started solidly with a limited game plan, but effective nonetheless in shutting out Scottish ambition. Fly half John Barnes, familiar with the angles and sightlines of his home ground, probed the Scots defence with the boot, and though the Scottish lineout was nearly invulnerable, he was supported by a pack willing to toil up the slight slope, and they forced enough errors to keep the scoreboard moving.

Thus for the first quarter of an hour Scottish were largely shut out, the only half chance going begging when Greenslade-Jones didn’t have time to move the ball wide. Barnes then put the home side three up when Graeme Smith was penalised for a high tackle.

Scottish finally secured some points when Cameron Avery made good ground to set up a maul which Clifton duly pulled down illegally, and when Will Green took a quick tap, the home defence went to ground over the next ruck. Lee Cholewa had a comfortable angle for the equalising kick.

Scottish then gifted Clifton another pot at goal. Having snatched a home lineout, Scottish then messed up the free ball, conceded a knock-on and a scrum, and then broke too soon trying to pressurise the scrum half. Barnes stroked the kick over with almost half an hour gone.

But within a minute Scottish were ahead for the first time, for once securing quick ball at the restart; two quick phases later and Jon Pettemerides sent Avery away to score wide left but not too far out for Cholewa’s conversion.

Cholewa extended the lead soon after when further Scots pressure told and Clifton were done for offside.

But by half time the lead was down to a point; the excellent Mark Douglas was penalised 35m out in a central position, for not releasing, and just before the interval Scottish were unlucky to be penalised for going to ground when one of the home forwards should have been punished first for not releasing the ball; so Barnes had two straightforward kicks and both sailed easily over. There was just time for a final Scottish attack. Clifton again strayed offside but this time Cholewa was unable to punish them, pushing his kick wide.

Scottish upped the tempo from the start of the new half. In the absence of coach Terry O’Connor, Jim Kelly’s half time talk made a difference: on came Steven Millard and Stuart Silvester and within a minute the Scots were further ahead. Clifton fired a clearing kick directly into touch on half way, Scottish worked a super-fast lineout, Greenslade-Jones took the ball up the middle, and Ross Yiend made for the corner before off-loading to Pettemerides. Cholewa’s decent effort gave the visitors an eight-point advantage.

Scottish looked ever more dangerous. Avery was well caught after picking a perfect line to meet Duncan Hayward’s pass; then pressure brought a five-metre scrum and from it Green looked from some angles to have got the ball down on the line, but Mr O’Hara had no line of sight through the pile-up.

It did not matter, because from the next phase of play Anton Petzer arrived in the line to break the defence and touch down under the posts.

By now the game had lost some shape, with a series of stoppages for treatment to home players, perhaps not strictly necessary on every occasion. Scottish persisted, and again punished home indiscretions when the chance came. Clifton were penalised for holding, Cholewa kicked to the corner, the long throw set up two swift phases and the result was a try for Silvester. Cholewa had converted the previous score but this time, from a wider angle, the ball drifted late and clipped a post.

Kelly sent on Lee Soper and Stuart Peel and the latter soon made an impact, firing a long penalty into touch and from the lineout receiving quick ball, beating two defenders and strolling over, then converting the try himself. He failed however with his next kick, earned when a lovely move the length of the pitch ended in yet another infringement by the home side, a penalty kick to touch, and the inevitable forward’s score, Mat Johnson emerging from the pile up with the ball.

By the end, Scottish were comfortably in control and looked sure to add to their six tries but Mr O’Hara allowed only a minute over the 40 in the second half, despite three long and many short stoppages for treatment to the home side.

Paul McFarland

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