Saturday 22nd Feb 2014

Saturday 22nd Feb 2014
Paviors 3rds 17 v Chesterfield Panthers 2nds 17
T: Richard Keeling x2, Jake Blair
C: Chris Cooper

On a bright and dry, but blustery afternoon, Panthers travelled to Paviors to play their 3rd team, to our horror we were faced to the cast of 20,000 spare players milling around, we realised after checking Pav's website that their 1st and 2nds didnt have game, but Paviors in the true spirit of the game didnt stitch us up.
In fairly even game Panthers took the edge in the scrummaging and lineouts but Paviors had the egde in the backs, from a Paviors clearance kick panthers winger and full back didnt clear the ball and choose to run it, caught out of position Paviors scored in the corner. A bad restart allowed Paviors good ball again, but Panthers worked had to regain possession and Chris cooper playing at 10 broke through and looked clear but choose to pass inside but the ball wasn't collected and Paviors cleared their lines for a Panthers line out, good clean ball from the line out resulted in a scrum to Panthers and Capt and flanker Richard Keeling managed to get the ball and break through the Paviors defence to score in the corner.
A series of pick and goes getting Panthers inside Paviors half and Rich Keeling repeated the same move to score again, 10-5
Paviors kicked clear and the Panthers full back ran onto the ball but it bounced just before him and allowed the Paviors winger an easy catch and run into under the posts and converted, 12-10.
Paviors started to get some excellent possession which Panthers defended well but they failed to cover the diving player over the ruck to score, 17-10 to Paviors.
It was Panthers turn to have a series of good pressure running the ball close in the corner a couple of times, one where everyone thought Panthers had scored, but the referee gave a scrummage on their 5m line, good ball retention at the scrum and the ball was shipped out to inside centre Jake Blair, who did a show and go in the opposite 12, drew the dummy and a clear path to score under the posts, duly converted by Chris Cooper, 17-17.
The referee blew the whistle and the honours were shared, a fair result considering the result against Paviors last time around, excellent support form the travelling crowd and a great controlled game by the referee, well done to all the players and to Paviors for being excellent hosts and playing the game in the right spirit.
Man of the match was Chris Cooper