: Fri May 15, 2009 5:21 am
Stags put Centurions to the sword!!
Hemel Stags Development team met local rival St Albans on Wednesday night in a London League fixture. Stags were looking at getting their first London league win of the season after going down narrowly against competition favourites Hammersmith last Saturday. The Stags team was a mix of our under eighteen winter squad as well as players that are knocking on the door for first team selection. The game started well for the Stags and four tries within the first fifteen minutes set the tone for the rest of the game. Dave Afreh who is coming back from a long injury lay off was impressive in the first half scoring three tries whilst Andy Champ did some good things with the ball and halves Matt Cannon and Connor Boyd-Barnes organised the lads well and created some quality tries with good vision.
The second half was very one sided and while St Albans tried hard they were no match for the big,physical well organised Stags. Jamie Acton made a big impact when he came off the bench and scored a couple of tries while Ian Grime who put himself back in contention for first grade selection with a workman like performance where he led from the front and was rewarded with a try towards the end. The Stags looked good when they had the ball and some of the fourteen tries that were scored were outstanding and some of the skill involved was first class. All nineteen players performed well although best performers were Ernie Evans, Ben Wetton, Andy Champ, Ian Grime with a special mention must go to our two sixteen year olds that held their own Callum Hurley and Keiron Dixon who both have bright futures in the game.
Head Coach Troy Perkins commented " I was really pleased with todays performance. The match on Saturday against Hammersmith was very physical and took alot out of the players so to perform like this four days later is a credit to all of them. It was pleasing to have such a strong squad out including some young guys, we had five seventeen year old and two sixteen year olds as well as some quality older guys that arent that far away from playing first grade. This season we have an planty of depth in our squad and two be putting out two very strong teams at the moment provides plenty of competition for places in the first team which can only be a good thing"
