AEI - king of the castle

 AEI 19

Kenilworth 7

A extremely heavy Kenilworth pack, pressured the whole game however showed little ability to break through, Kenilworth consistently were sent scrambling back to recover spilled ball. The inevitable eventually happen after twenty minutes when the AEI platform held solid 20 meters out. The ball was moved though all ending into the hands of winger “Slim” Lee Clarke who summed it up later when he said, “three meters out I was never not going to score.” In rare turn of events Kenilworth fullback broke down the line, hunted down by Stuart Brown who came out of the encounter with cracked vertebrae, When play resumed 30 minutes later the big boys were no longer blowing and Kenilworth pushed towards the try line. AEI denied the first attempt holding Kenilworth up over the line but then they immediately set about driving the AEI scrum over to scored on halftime.

In the second half, the first chance going begging when fullback Nathan Yang knocked the ball on receiving a difficult pass in the chest and a clear paddock ahead of him. Still AEI were not to be denied long, camped 30 meters out Peter Pritchard stole the ball in the lineout and quick hands from William McBride and nifty foot-work from Army Clakey scored under the posts. Mark Giffen converting to put AEI back in the lead 13-7. It looked like AEI might concede the lead as they found themselves defending the line against a penalty tap, great defence from John Die and Tim Sergeant allowed AEI to snuff out the attack. It looked like Army Clakey was in for his second stepping around the Kenilworth defence to an open field. Unbelievably the Kenilworth defender appeared from nowhere with pace that defied the eye to knock the ball out of his hands into touch. With the graceful figure of flanker Andrew Clarke now on the pitch combining with Chris Clarke and Jade to recover the ball setting AEI up with a scrum on the 10-meter line. When finally the ball come out Jonathan Jinkens jigged through the line to go under the post, Mark Griffen converted on full time to give a season performance of 3 from 5.

Team Coach Terry Botts said “ a good AEI performance, the forwards were punished today yet held their game and the backs showed what they can do when moving at pace. Lets not forget also we were missing Tiger and Udall who have both been struck down with a virus”

The Jolly Abbot Man of the Match title went to Tim Sargent.