Author Archives: Paul Clarke

REPORT: Ealing Trailfinders 1st XV 36-15 Shelford

Five-try Ealing Trailfinders jumped to second place in national 2 South, having too much pace and power for a determined, but ultimately outclassed Shelford at Vallis Way.

The hosts dominated the early stages, Ben Ward stroking over two penalties. However, the visitors replied with their first attack, skipper Alex Birkby diving over from a ruck and converted by Ed Gough.

Kiba Richards on the way to scoring

Kiba Richards on the way to scoring

An entertaining opening quarter continued with Ealing’s well-worked restart giving Kiba Richards a cruise to the line.

Back came Shelford with a Gough penalty, but Ealing’s willingness to run with the ball, and strength in the set-piece, kept the men from Cambridgeshire pinned in their own half.  Richards eluded a string of would-be tacklers and appeared to touch down, but the officials ruled against him. However, David Essien soon surged over to give Ealing a 16-10 half-time lead.

 

Davis Essien scores

Shortly after the break, good work by Essien instigated a flowing move from the Ealing 22. Chesters sprinted 60 metres before handing full-back Peter Hodgkinson a trot to the line. More enterprising counter –attacking should have led to another Ealing try but Marcus Burcham knocked on with the line at his mercy.

Ealing’s dominance at last told on the hour as quick ruck ball and swift passing sent Chesters to the corner for his eighth try of the campaign. Tongan powerhouse Aki Lea kept faint Shelford hopes alive but they were knocked back by Ward’s third penalty.
Chesters went over again but the referee deemed Hodgkinson’s pass to the wing as forward, before sub Bryan Young dotted down to confirm a resounding victory.


TEAMS
EALING: Hodgkinson, Richards, Burcham, Price, Chesters, Ward, Gill, Charlton, Hodson, Neville, Gregory, Davies, Essien, Morris, Hall
Replacements: Buchanan, Alexopoulos, Winterbottom, Francis, Young
SHELFORD: Gough, Jones, Glitherow, Berridge, Chiwanga, Lewis, Birkby, Anderson, Ronaki, Arnold, Mills, McLaughlin, Jackowski, Mclintock, Lea
Replacements: Erven, Gregersen, Bullen-Brown, Glynn, Ball

Scorers
Ealing 36

Tries: Richards 15, Essien 38, Hodgkinson 45, Chesters 60, Young 73
Conversions: Ward 46
Penalties: Ward 3, 10, 69

Shelford 15

Tries:  Birkby 13, Lea 66
Conversions:  Gough 14
Penalties:  Gough 20

 

By Adrian Hill
 

Pete Paterson gains further recognition

Pete Paterson has been recognised as "an outstanding volunteer who has made a significant contribution to grass roots rugby" and has been invited to attend the RFU Centenery Dinner at Twickenham on 2 November 2009 to celebrate 100 years of Rugby. 

The event will be attended by the England Squad and during the dinner the winner of the O2 Player of the Century will be announced . A fitting invitation in recognition of Pete’s superb work with Ealing Rugby Club and the Referees Section.

Mark Lynch Appointed to RFU

Mark Lynch (a London Society Referee) has been appointed by the RFU as a Club Referee Development Officer, working under Ed Turnill and Dave Broadwell. Mark will be training new club referees, continuing the excellent work of the RFU Development team. Congratulations to Mark on his new role.

REPORT: Barnes Vets 61 -12 Ealing Evergreens

The Evergreens suffered their first loss of the season and oh what a loss!  I know many people would say why do a match report after a heavy loss?  Who wants to read about it?  What is there to say after shipping such a heavy defeat?  Actually there is quite a lot that can be said.  Mainly that rugby is a 15 man game and we cannot hope to be successful with so many of our regular backs missing and those remaining playing completely out of position.

Once again, the first rule of Ealing Evergreens was “get a team on the pitch” and with a few phone calls and a little arm-twisting we ended up with the full 18 players on the day.  I looked at our forward pack and thought we looked really tasty and I wasn’t proved wrong.  Fair play to the backs who agreed to play in positions they would not normally play in and they stuck at it for the day but Barnes are a well drilled outfit with a lot of speed and experience out wide and that was the difference between us.

Ealing started with Stef Glancy, myself and Richie Melia in the front row, Paul Clarke and Bill Miller in the second row and Jamie Carlin, Rob Ellis and Dave Higgins in the back row.  Arguably the strongest pack we’ve put out this year so far.   Dave Brathwaite replaced the injured Vittorio at scrum-half and Ed Beck stepped into the fly-half position from his usual place at centre.  Our two centres were Eric Murray and Adrian Hobbs, both normally wingers while on the actual wings we had Michele (usually a second row) and Paul Lowen.  New chap, Chris, filled in at full-back despite normally being a  winger.  5 wingers and a second row didn’t augur well for our defensive patterns!  Subs were Bill Miller II, Mark Rutherford and Rob Williams, all of whom came on in the second half. 

Now in most games where you dominate scrums and lineouts you would think you have a better than 50/50 chance of winning and the first ten minutes saw sustained Ealing pressure on the Barnes line but turnover ball spread wide saw them run in a long distance score totally against the run of play.  That was the story of the first half with Ealing on top in the scrums and lineouts but unable to dictate the play enough or starve Barnes of possession.  Barnes had three tries on the board before we got our first.  Good forward play saw the ball given to Eddie Beck who stepped past  and through three defenders to touch down for the try.  Barnes picked up another two tries in the first half and the only one I remember anything about was when lineout ball was tapped down to our side on our 5 yard line .  Normally I’d expect to be all over that like a cheap suit but this time it landed behind me and their hooker beat me to it to dive over for the score.  Embarrassing.  We added another try in the first half, again after good forward driving, when Jamie Carlin drove off the back of a maul and powered over despite the attentions of two Barnes players.   Eddie Beck converted and the first half finished with Barnes ahead 5 tries to 2. 

Early in the second half we went to uncontested scrums when Stef Glancy pulled his hamstring.  The ref didn’t make us go to 14 men despite us not having a replacement prop.  Speaking of the ref, he was a Barnes man due to their being no official ref appointed.  He did a fair enough job but completely failed to penalise Barnes flopping over to our side at every tackle situation.  Some well applied boots might have made the difference and encouraged tacklers to roll away and maybe that’s a lesson learned.  The forward battle was, in many ways, won by Evergreens with Rob Ellis dominating the lineouts and Dave Higgins battering the Barnes line both when carrying ball and in defence.  However, it was the Barnes backline that did the damage.  They had speed, understanding and organisation and used big runners in midfield to suck in our defenders and then whipped it wide to exploit the gaps left.  We missed our share of tackles as well which certainly didn’t help. 

Despite Barnes adding another 4 tries in the second half we never gave up and kept running at them trying to improve the scoreline but ultimately to no avail.  The simple lesson is that we cannot keep putting out teams that are thrown together on Friday night/Saturday morning.  The big guns in our league have settled teams that play the same positions week in week out.  We need to develop the same continuity because the fact is that if we had the back-line yesterday that we had against London Irish we would have won this game.  We have  a chance to get back on track next Saturday with an away trip to Weybridge but we need to start getting our best XV on the pitch in their usual positions if we want to get the results we are capable of.

Declan Cronin

Scores

Ealing Evergreens: 12

Tries: Beck, Carlin
Cons: Beck

Barnes Vets: 61

Tries: 9p
Cons: 8

Volunteers required for lettering machine – Urgent!

We are considering providing a service for putting heat transfer letters on shorts and training wear.  If this is to happen, we need 4 volunteers to operate the machine, both on Sundays and especially for big event days such as Ealing Festival.  The job wil involve applying the letters, operating the heat transfer machinery safely and calculating and placing re-order quantities.  The service will run from October to March.  

Hopefully this will be a popular service and will enhance player image, club and team identity and, more importantly result in less lost kit!

In order to offer this service at the Ealing festival and beyond, we need these volunteers urgently.  They must be over 18 and not in a coaching, refereeing or first aid role.  They will also need to be able to move the machine from storage and set up a stall every Sunday from 11:30 (for Youth players) – 13:00 (for Mini players). This is an ideal opportunity to get to know people at the club and to fulfil the club requirement that everyone has to volunteer for something!

Please contact Geoff Bloom if you are prepared to undertake this role (0208 9326936)

REPORT: Ealing Exiles 7 – 40 Feltham I

Despite scoring a converted try soon after the kick off, the Exiles went down heavily to Feltham Is.

The final scoreline read 7-40.  Luton again took some shots and they can be found here.

 

Ealing Exiles 7 Feltham I 40
Tries: Ainsley Tries: (tbc)
Cons: Nic B Cons: (tbc)
Pens:   Pens: (tbc)
Drops:   Drops:  

 

RFU Coach Education Programme renewed

Last season’s RFU award winning Coach Education programme has been renewed and improved and is now once again in full swing at Ealing.

Around 50 volunteer coaches have already attended sessions this season on Tag Rugby, Coaching Children and the IRB/RFU’s "Rugby Ready" course. A new initiative, the Advanced Coach’s Forum met to discuss ‘Decision-making and how much structure there could/should be in Mini Rugby’ with the group’s conclusions shortly to be made available to the wider coaching community.

A list of course dates for the remainder of the season available to the Club’s volunteer coaching team may be found by following this link. icon Ealing Coaching Pathway

Nick Lambert

Ealing Rugby Club Survey

We are doing a survey to find out how we can improve our club. We would be very grateful if you would take a few minutes to fill it in.
 
The survey is open to all members of the club, players and supporters alike. Members of Trailfinders Sports and Social Club are also invited to participate.
 
Please click here to complete the survey.
 
Thank you.
 
Damian Bugeja,
Chairman