Chiswick Grind Out A Win

Rugby result : Chiswick 18 London New Zealand 15

In a very tight league, it was important that Chiswick ground out a win with a team lacking key members out injured. London New Zealand, also short of players, due, apparently to a liking for bierfests at this time of the year, will feel they might have got something out of this game.

A reorganised Chiswick back division, with Adie Lewis at full-back, and Peter Townsend on the wing, never really got going, with too many players trying to weave their way through the central defence, and then losing the ball after the tackle, as they failed to make the immediate back pass now demanded.

The first such mistake, after two minutes, gifted LNZ with a kick from just outside the home 22, easily converted. LNZ immediately returned the compliment, and Tom Duffy slotted a slightly harder kick. The other main determinant of the match quality was the implementation of the law rendering illegal the kick into touch when the ball is passed back into the 22. The resultant hoofs down the park led to a scrappy game, in which neither side ever gained the ascendancy, or played with any real fluidity.

The home pack had an early superiority, pushing and wheeling the LNZ scrum, but Chiswick kept wasting good opportunities with slow passing.

Townsend showed up with a typical weaving run upfield from deep, just failing to link up with Graham Robbings.

Somehow Chiswick then managed to lose the ball as it was laid back by a tackled player, and an outrageous dummy by the LNZ scrum-half was swallowed hook line and sinker by the home defence. Although he was pushed a bit wide by Mark Jones, the touchdown proved reasonably easy to convert. Duffy just failed with a penalty kick but Chiswick were attacking regularly now, with plenty of lineout ball, from Sam Hood and Matt Pickering. Right on the stroke of half-time, a move which started with Robbings snatching the ball at the tail of the lineout, continued with a quick pass from Duffy to Jones, then Adie Lewis to John Gibson, Duffy to Parmeter, Tom Adams to Robbings, and then Townsend got the ball and magicked his way to the corner. The kick failed, and the whistle went.

A typically bad home restart had Robbings in the sin bin, and LNZ attacking with little grubber kicks through the home back line. Chiswick managed to stop an LNZ maul but they then used the ball to good effect, quick movement along the line leading to a full-back score in the corner.

Chiswick came back, and Duffy had another kick at goal, but pulled it. As Robbings came back on, the game suddenly switched, as an LNZ player took his place in the sin bin. Duffy kicked an easy penalty on twenty minutes, and with four points in it, Chiswick came alive. Crucially, when Townsend had to go off injured, Keith Luckman moved to fly half, with Duffy outside him and Jones back on the wing. This seemed to free up the threes, who took the ball into the LNZ 22, where a good maul from a lineout nearly led to a try, the ball being knocked on as the pack crossed the line.

Almost immediately after, however, Chiswick did score. Quick passing along the line, and Luckman switched the ball to Stuart Parmeter, firmly ensconced in the line. Ex LNZ player Parmeter took the chance to cock a snoot at his old club, and squirmed his way over for the vital score. Duffy stroked the kick over, and Chiswick defended well, keeping the ball tight, up to the final whistle.

Chiswick team :- Donaldson, Parmeter, Davies ( Matulick ), Pickering, Tonkin, Adams, Robbings, Hood, Feltham, Duffy, Townsend ( Luckman ), Gibson, Jones, Miller, Lewis

September 28, 2009