Sarries2009 1stXV Match Report

Seniors 1st XV - Match Report (League Fixture)
(17/10/09) Hayle 1stXV - Away (Won 3-10)

Exeter Saracens returned to winning ways with a hard earned but deserved victory away at Hayle. The home side fielded their best team of the season to date and with Sarries also at full strength it was always going to be a tight match.
Almost from the kick off the Hayle fly half threatened with two drop goal attempts within the first three minutes. Fortunately both were well wide of the mark. Sarries forwards then put together a few phases of play before releasing the explosive backs with some fine handling and running. Unfortunately Chisling missed what for him was a relatively straight attempt at goal. Although there was little between the sides, Sarries seemed to build the more fluent phases of play with Ben Croft and Sam Gooch looking especially threatening.
After almost 30 minutes of play the deadlock was finally broken with Hayle converting a simple penalty to lead 3-0. Immediately from the kick off the Sarries forwards rampaged through Rob Hilton and Alex Moore who had just replaced the injured live wire Matt Davies. Within two minutes the sides were level again as Chisling made no mistake this time to take the score to 3-3 where it stayed until half time.

Sarries began the second half at a higher tempo putting together more fluent phases of play with the trade mark fluency of interplay between forwards and backs. As the forward platform became more stable with the highlight being some excellent counter rucking, the three-quarters managed to find more space. However Hayle defended valiantly. Mid way through the second half, Ben Williams who had seamlessly moved from second row to back row, took a clean lineout. The ball 'off the top' was swiftly transferred by Matt Abbott who then looped Kieran Bromell to find full back Dean Chisling coming into the line at pace. Chisling cleverly drew the last defender before timing his pass perfectly to Brendan Phennah on the right wing, to score an excellent try. Dean Chisling added the conversion.
The remainder of the half was frantic end to end rugby as both teams continued in pursuit of the valuable league points. On balance the score probably reflected the balance of the game although to be fair, the entertainment was far in excess of the 13 points on the board from both sides.