BROMLEY TOO ACCURATE FOR CRANBROOK WHO SHOW GOOD SPIRIT
On a grey autumn day with no sign of sun, rain or wind, Cranbrook were comfortably beaten by visitors Bromley who showed a pleasing all round game.
Kicking off towards the Clubhouse Bromley scored early and had rattled up 35 points by halftime, but at no point did they completely dominate, as Cranbrook had enough ball and territory to occasionally threaten.There was, however, a big difference in execution, where Bromley with varied plays were accurate whereas Cranbrook usually went wide and made too many mistakes against a strong tackling defence. Cranbrook also struggled in the scrums losing a couple on their own put in, one of which led to the concession of a try, but were much more successful in the lineout, getting nearly all their own ball and also a considerable amount from a misfiring Bromley in this regard.
The rest of Bromley's game plan was varied and accurate, kicking well when nothing was on, but handling and passing was to a high standard. They also possessed a slippery fullback who made a fine try by running back a decent clearance. Only one try was from an obvious mistake as wing Elliott Barbour was out of position having tackled, the replacement scrum half spotted no cover at wing and sailed in unopposed. All tries were converted for a 0 -35 half time score.
Into the 2nd half Cranbrook appeared to raise their game, even forcing an occasional handling mistake. Although there were two more converted tries, much of the play was in the Bromley half and especially so in the last fifteen minutes as Cranbrook again demonstrated an unvanquished spirit. Ball retention was good as attacks made ground as scrum half Oscar Wookey again got the ball away from the breakdown well, also making a couple of breaks, fly half Ollie Allman used his experience scanning for gaps and varying his plays intelligently as Cranbrook were only denied by robust tackling. A deserved final try came as the ball broke into the in goal area and a Bromley player running back failed to scoop up the ball, leaving Allman, following up, to dive on the ball for the try and returning fullback Max Wookey to convert .
Next Saturday the team travel to West Wickham to play Beccehamians with a 14:00 kick off.
The team was 1 T Humphreys, 2 J Posey, 3 M Stockman, 4 J Parkes, 5 T Hamphlett, 6 S Jovanovic, 7 J Overy, 8 H Gillanders Captain, 9 O Wookey, 10 O Allman, 11 E Barbour, 12 A Cornwallis, 13 J Westcott, 14 D Roberts, 15 M Wookey.
Replacements; J Forknall for Humphries 60 minutes , L Stone for Parkes 65 minutes , W Harrison for Westcott temporarily 26-36 mins, for Roberts 70 mins.