Newport (Salop) RUFC

Newport 31 – Bromsgrove 0

Newport hold Bromsgrove scoreless to go joint second in the table.

By: Peter Maher

“The best game of rugby I have ever seen at Newport” was an oft heard refrain on Saturday afternoon at the Old Showground and it was frankly hard to argue. Port put in the complete performance combing silky handling and offloads with aggressive defence that left top of the table Bromsgrove struggling to put together any consistent attacking pressure.

Port’s pack looked strong from the start manifesting in a pushover try by Jack Wells in the twelfth minute. From the restart Ricky Bailey playing on the right wing made a break and advanced to the Bromsgrove twenty-two before being brought down. From the resultant breakdown Newport established an overload on the left-hand side and it was a simple case of going through the hands to put in Sam Evans in the corner. After thirty-three minutes Newport again ramped up the pressure building the phases in the Bromsgrove twenty-two eventually putting Sam Brown through a gap in the defensive line to dot down under the posts. Newport went in at the break nineteen points up which given they were playing up the slope and into a strong wind gave Bromsgrove a mountain to climb in the second half.

Bromsgrove were clearly not top of the table for nothing however and came out to give it a good go. Aided by the wind Port’s restart went straight into touch, Bromsgrove taking the scrum at halfway. Retaining possession, they advanced to the Port twenty-two. Port’s defence however was relentless, withstanding the attack and ultimately winning a penalty at the breakdown that was cleared downfield, a consistent theme of the second half. Bromsgrove seemed to have created something after fifty-eight minutes when they intercepted in their own twenty-two and the right winger made a break. Epitomising Port’s spirit however Ricky Bailey chased back to make the tackle and kill the attack. After seventy-one minutes Connor Adams made a monstrous clearance from his own twenty-two to find touch in the Bromsgrove twenty-two meaning Port had the put in at the resultant lineout. From the lineout the ball went out to Jake Leonard at inside centre who capped a magnificent afternoon with an outrageous show and go that completely fooled the defence and dot down under the posts. The afternoon was completed with a pushover try by Ollie Buckley after seventy-seven minutes resulting in a final score of thirty-one to nothing. Jake Leonard made three conversions on a difficult day for place kicking.

Director of Rugby Bob Adams commented “Our focus during training had been on our defence and without question we took that into our game against Bromsgrove. There’s no doubt that this was our best performance so far this season, our platform was built around our defence. We talked during the week of how we were going to execute our defensive strategy and see how Bromsgrove would react with the intensity and pressure we were going to apply upon them. The pleasing aspect from Saturday was that the other facets of our game remained good, set piece and attack, but the most pleasing part as a group was to nil our opposition. 

In our huddle we talked of how we learn from this performance and work to better ourselves again ready for our next game away to Burton, our energy and intensity should also be there week in week out, this will help drive our standards and performances and hopefully move us closer to the levels we are searching for as a group.”

The result sees Newport advance to joint second in the league with Scunthorpe, a point behind leaders Sheffield. Midlands Premier is proving to be a tight league this season with six teams within eight points of the leaders. Newport’s next home game is on November 27th when the visitors will be Doncaster Phoenix.