Team:-
1. Tom Whittaker
2. Jonno Shaw
3. Jospeh Ball
4. Matt Bardsley
5. James Coates
6. Ewan Ashman
7. Danny Pointon
8. Billy Hollinshead
9. Kieran Stubbs
10. Louis Hurst
11. Joe Vercoe
12. Oliver Holmes
13. David Brown
14. Kieran Leyland
15. Lawrence Emery
Replacements:-
Adam Geldard
Tommy Chatten
Harry Whitehead
Fraser Jane
Sam Cooke
On a drizzly day, but excellent conditions for rugby, Sandbach welcomed Ellesmere Port to Bradwall Road for a fixture that saw both squads depleted by injuries and the half term holidays.
Over the last two weeks the Sandbach boys have been working hard in both training and fixtures to erase some of the errors in their game and to improve their support play and overall tactics.
The first 10 minutes of the fixture saw both teams struggling to come to terms with the game and to maintain a grip on the ball for any length of time.
Sandbach were guilty of kicking away possession and falsely hoping that line outs would result in forward momentum. With strong encouragement from their coaching team, they dropped this tactic and started to run with ball in hand, which resulted in the first of two tries in the corner for Ewan.
The confidence gained from these scores and the tactic to run back everything that Ellesmere Port kicked to the Sandbach full back, resulted in two further scores in the first half - one under the posts for Oliver and one for Billy.
Two of the first half tries were converted by Louis to make the half time score 24:0.
In the second half, Sandbach were able to make a number of changes, so that everyone got valuable pitch time and was able to contribute to the continued running rugby.
Ewan scored another brace of tries, while Billy powered over with a well taken No8 's try and the day was rounded off by an excellent try, crafted through a neat interchange between Oliver and Louis (scorer).
Two of the second half tries were converted by Louis and Lawrence.
There were huge positives from today, especially in the way that all players supported each other and the boys played with a much improved shape and tactical awareness.
A quick thank you to our guest coach Ben, who we hope to see back at Bradwall Road again soon.
Thank you to Ellesmere Port for continuing to battle with only 15 players and for playing a fair and competitive game of rugby. We hope to meet you again soon.