Southend Sharks 38
St Albans Centurions 24 St Albans Centurions gave debuts to Sado, Lee , Gardner and Jasinski who put in impressive perfomances. A much-changed Centurions squad fell to its first defeat of the season despite fighting back to parity after a disastrous opening few minutes. The travel to the Essex coast appeared to have had a detrimental effect as the Saints began sluggishly against the quick-moving Sharks. Converted tries in the second and ninth minute left the Hertfordshire outfit 12-0 down before they’d hardly had chance to draw breath. But under Simba Mupamhanga’s coaching, this side is nothing if not resilient. On 19 minutes, Joe Baker grabbed his customary try, converted by Chad Turley, to get the team on the scoreboard. The impressive Sharks scored again to stretch their lead but tries from the ever-impressive Tom Spratt and the excellent Godson Sado, both converted by Turley, saw the teams go into half-time level at 18-18. The start to the second-half was uncompromising with the teams battling hard for the upper hand. Despite heroic performances from the likes of Baker, Spratt and Niall Braniff – each completing 17 bone-crunching tackles – it was the home team that broke free to score two tries, converting one of them. For the Centurions to have any hope, they had to grab the next try. And with less than 15 minutes to go on the clock they did just that. Mupamhanga crossed the line in style and Turley added his fourth conversion of the match. The momentum was lost, however, when the Sharks managed to cross the line for their sixth try of the match. With the successful conversion the game was already lost before the home team added a seventh against tiring Centurions who had given their all. Both Coach and Manager took heart from this battling defeat. Mupamhanga believed the young lads making their debuts “had genuine raw potential and will quickly improve over the next few weeks”. Tony Bottomley has particular praise for Isaac Lee: “he’s an excellent loose forward who impressed against a very good Sharks team today. The future’s looking bright”. Comments are closed.
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