Under 14
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Sandbach 38 - Walsall 36 |
Sun 17 October 99
Current Staffordshire Cup holders Walsall were the visitors to Bradwall Road on Sunday 17 October. Sandbach had their pride at stake after two heavy defeats and the result was a totally absorbing and thrilling game.
Welcoming the return from injury of Dan Stubbs & Richard Wilson to their pack Sandbach started the match strongly. In their last two matches the experimental pack had worked hard but with little reward. On this occasion early tries from scrum-half Tom Hodgkinson, converted by Andy Rollings and another by Rollings himself in the corner (unconverted) saw Sandbach's forward dominance rewarded with an early 12-0 lead.
Walsall fought back strongly with a converted try after 6 mins but two further strikes from centre Jason Ashwin (one converted by stand-off Chris Greenhalgh) saw Sandbach dominate the first half. A late first half score by Walsall saw the sides turn round at half time at 24-12.
In the second half Walsall made sterling efforts to break the spirit of the Sandbach side. After less than a minute they managed to score a converted try to bring the score back to 24-19. Two further tries, both of which went unconverted, put them into the lead at 24-29 but another Rollings try which he converted himself pushed Sandbach back into the lead at 31-29.
The final stages of the game saw Sandbach extend their lead with a superb try by Matthew Walton (converted by Chris Greenhalgh) but Walsall didn't give up easily and pushed the home side to the death with a late injury time try (converted) that brought the final score to a nail biting 38-36.
Sandbach travel to Wrexham next week.
Sandbach - Wilson, Henry, Gooch, Faulkner, Wagstaff, Stubbs, Kiernan (McCracken), Graveney, Hodgkinson, Greenhalgh (Westrup), Ashwin, Walton, Rollings, Eyers (Huss), Blatherwick.
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