RUGBY: Battling Painswick deny Ciren the Cup

10:03am Tuesday 29th April 2008

Cirencester II 5 Painswick II 32.

DESPITE opening the scoring, Cirencester couldn't withstand the second-half fight back of Painswick in the final of the Stroud Combination Junior Cup at Dursley last Saturday.

Cirencester, who fielded 11 U19s in their squad, started the game brightly and with fly-half Dave Evans spinning the ball wide at every opportunity in an effort to tire the older and slower Painswick forwards, things looked good for Ty Stubley's side.

It was no surprise to the large crowd when from a Dan Wilson break on the left and after some good inter-passing between Town's forwards and backs, hooker Simon Waite scored under the posts after five minutes of frenetic play. Matt Harman nervously scuffed the conversion attempt.

The next ten minutes was all Cirencester, but final passes were fumbled and last-ditch tackles were made. Slowly, the Painswick side gained a foothold in the Town half and pounded the Cirencester line, but the defence, with Adam Reeves and Ashley Scrivens outstanding, held firm.

After Painswick missed two relatively easy penalty kicks, the turning point of the game occured when Rhys Owen was penalised for a professional foul and a cynical fracas broke out, resulting in three yellow cards - two for Cirencester (Owen and Ben Hunt) and one for Painswick's captain Fred Hayward.

From the resulting penalty, Painswick's influential lock crashed over to level the scores.

In the second-half, Painswick, with a one-man advantage, exploited the gaps and eventually scored out wide to take the lead.

This was followed up by an immediate Painswick try from the kick-off and with a 5-15 deficit and the 50-50 decisions going against them, the belief of the young Cirencester side started to ebb away.

Painswick turned the screw with two tries under the posts.

Ty Stubley brought on his substitutes and there were good individual runs by Josh Brierley, Craig Hughes, Harman, Jay Pyman and Tom Barefoot but the support failed to keep the pressure on.

Tempers began to fray and two players were sent off for fighting before Painswick deservedly closed the game out with a late try to secure a 32-5 win.

Cirencester: B Hunt, S Waite, N Handy, T Stubley (capt), A Reeves, S Brandreth, S Brown, A Scrivens, R Hazzard, D Evans, D Wilson, J Brierley, R Owen, C Hughes, M Harman. Reserves : N Owen, T Barefoot, J Pyman, W Stubley.

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