Royston Crush All Hope For Stanford.

Royston kicked off the road to Twickenham with a tough away tie at unbeaten Stanford le Hope this Saturday. A frenetic start by both sides resulted in end to end rugby for the first ten minutes, with Will Dacey unlucky not to score after he was impeded chasing through a kick. Early Royston pressure was not rewarded as two penalty opportunities were missed, and it was actually Stanford who got the first score of the game as their 9 sniped over from close range, with the extra’s added for good measure. This stirred Royston into action and excellent execution of a strike move in the Stanford half allowed captain Ben Ritsema to score Royston’s first try of the game and although the extras were missed, Dacey quickly made amends with another penalty opportunity to put Royston 8-7 up. Further pressure in Stanford’s half led to a second Royston try, as this time Ollie Brook and Chris Ellis worked the blind side to good effect to allow Ellis to touch down for an unconverted score. As the first half wore on, a strong defensive performance by Royston was let down by ill-discipline, which allowed Stanford to tie the game up at 13 all with two penalties before the end of the half.

The introduction of fresh legs at the break in the form of the returning Scott Easy, Adam Smith and Will Cottrell were used to great effect almost immediately from the second half whistle. After some initial Stanford pressure in the form of a missed penalty and drop goal, Royston cut loose as forwards and backs began to combine beautifully and to great effect. Tries were scored from blind side strike moves, well executed line-out drives and general open play as Stanford crumbled under the relentless Royston pressure. The Crows kept up their unyielding defensive work, directly leading to turnover tries in the Stanford 22. All in all, second half tries were scored by Smith, Max Finney, Dan Ritsema, Danny Gwilliams, Charlie Sparks and the excellent Theo Pow, with the only real blot on the copybook being that only one of those six tries was converted. The bench was rotated well in the second half to keep the impetus up at all points, demonstrating an excellent squad result as Royston ran out comfortable 45-13 winners. Royston can now look forward to round 2 of the Junior Vase with great optimism, knowing that a decent cup run is within their grasp if they really want it.