St Ives Roosters travelled to local rivals Cambridge Eagles confident of victory after last weeks hard fought win against a strong Colchester. The Roosters fielded a weakened side with four of those players carrying injuries. The Roosters were without last week’s 5-try hero John Paxton, Head Coach Ian Hill and new signing Marco Rossi. Paxton and Hill were away representing the South of England and Rossi away at the England Lionhearts training camp.
The Roosters began the game strongly and with their first attack of the game their hard running winger, Gareth Drake touched down in the corner only to be foiled by the touch judge for a foot over the line and a brush with the corner flag. Another scoring opportunity went begging as hooker Andrew Dean raced clear from 5 yards out only to drop the ball with the try line begging. The Roosters though continued to attack the Cambridge line and on the 18 minute mark Dean scored with a trade mark dive over the line from half a yard out to make up for his error. Michael Sykes was successful with the conversion to make the score 6 – 0 to the Roosters.
From the resulting kick off, a barn storming run from Gareth Drake took the Roosters to within 20 yards from the Eagles line, a quick play the ball was prevented illegally in the referee’s opinion and a penalty was given. Quick thinking by the Roosters players resulted in Michael Cade running over the 2 Eagles defenders to score under the posts, M Sykes was again successful with the conversion to put the Roosters 12 – 0 up on the 20-minute mark.
The Roosters half back pairing of Michael Drake and veteran Dan McCormack started to impose themselves and took complete control of the game. A quick play of the ball from M Drake enabled McCormack to break through the Eagles defence on the half way line to race clear. After side stepping an Eagles player. He passed inside to the supporting Michael Sykes that left the Eagles full back rooted to the spot, Sykes scored under the posts which he duly converted to make the score 18 – 0.
Following the Eagles re-start, the Roosters were awarded a penalty for offside at the play-the-ball. After a well worked move which resulted in the Roosters forwards gaining ground, scrum half Michael Drake broke clear and unselfishly put David Cervenak into a gap to score from 15 yards. Michael Sykes converted the try to give the Roosters a 24 nil lead.
On the 39-minute mark the Eagles’ forwards worked the ball well down the Roosters right before a succession of quick passes back to their left put the young Eagles winger clear, a try looked the certain outcome but Gareth Drake made a try-saving tackle in the corner to ensure that Eagles remained scoreless.
With the half time whistle approaching, the Roosters became complacent and gave away 2 successive penalties to the Eagles. This resulted in S. Kidder scoring a well-deserved try for the Eagles that was not converted. From the kick off, Roosters were eager to score again before half-time and despite being awarded a penalty taking them into the right-hand corner of the pitch they were unable to capitalise further and the referee blew for half-time with the score Roosters 24 Eagles 4.
The Eagles began the second half were they had left off the first, which exploited the Roosters lack of concentration and ten minutes into the second-half the Eagles winger scored in the left-hand corner, the conversion was missed and took the score to Roosters 24 Eagles 8.
With Cambridge showing new belief and putting pressure on the Roosters line, they scored again under the posts and this time the try was converted. Roosters 24 Eagles 14.
This only gave the Eagles added confidence and belief that they could claw-back the points and win the game. They began to launch an assault on the Roosters line with a tussle developing between both sets of forwards and backs.
Fortunately, for the Roosters and their travelling fans they regained their composure and control of the game. Duncan Potts crashed over the line to put the game beyond reach of the Eagles, the conversion was missed. Roosters 30 Eagles 14.
One minute later, Roosters put together a strong cross-field move which resulted in Dan McCormack breaking through a tired Eagles defence in the Roosters half. The Eagles chased back and their cover defence caught McCormack 5 yards from the line, only for the Roosters stand off to offload in the tackle to Jamie Noble. He scored with a dive to the right of the posts, again the conversion was missed. Roosters 34 – Eagles 14.
The Roosters next try came from Man of the Match Charles Paxton whose crunching tackle close to the Eagles line resulted in the Eagles attacker losing the ball behind his own try line, leaving Paxton to dive on the ball for Roosters 7th try of the game. Sykes converted.
Cambridge however were to have the last say in a game where they never stopped trying to cross the Roosters line and with seconds remaining of the game their efforts were rewarded with try which was converted to give a final score of 40 – 20 to the Roosters.
Roosters Coach Ian Hill commented “I have spoken to some of our players and the coaching staff after they game. They were happy with the win but were extremely disappointed with the performance. Fair play to Cambridge they worked hard but experience told at the end of the day. We can play much better than this and I will be looking for continual improvement from the players”.