ENFIELD IGNATIANS played their best rugby of the season but, just as they had done a week earlier they let matters slip, although they can at least console themselves with the securing of two invaluable losing bonus points in the wake of the 31-24 away defeat to second placed St Albans, writes Jonathan Landi.
All too often this season, Ignatians have found themselves chasing the game, but this time the team assumed a different persona, having exploded from the blocks, and such was their dominance that they were sitting on a 17-5 lead after 35 minutes.
The visitors opened the scoring from as early as the fifth minute when a successful probe from Frank Antwi ten metres out successfully breached the St Albans line, before the tonic number eight again rumbled over from close range following a patient build up.
However, Ignatians were also careless at times and they were reined back after they carelessly coughing up possession, with St Albans cashing in on the lapse after successfully farming an overlap.
Undaunted, Ignatians roared back and they scored their best try of the afternoon, and from the initial platform of an attacking lineout, they orchestrated a slick backs’ move in which Ryan Loo and Tom MacDougall combined to send in Femi Adeosun.
Although Ignatians’ fortunes waned quickly hereafter and the sin-binning of Ryan Loo and Cairo Sango [both for high tackles] close to half-time proved costly in the extreme, as it threw St Albans a lifeline and the hosts soon cashed in their numerical superiority.
St Albans trimmed the visitors lead to 17-10 before the break and, with the wind now in their sails, they twice broke the Ignatians’ defensive line, as the visitors now found themselves staring at a 24-17 deficit.
Although It’s not in Ignatians’ DNA to throw in the towel and, with their full complement back on the field, they evened the score at 24-24 when a neat decoy run from captain Euan Renny set-up the charging Alex McCall.
Paul Duke (pictured), the Mary Madden’s Man of the Match, added a second conversion which setting up a grand finale, but the visitors, not for the first time in the game, proved the architects of their own downfall.
Having incurred the wrath of the referee for some careless backchat, St Albans were afforded the perfect attacking platform some 5m from the line, and a quick tap penalty move was successfully signed off by the hosts’ dynamic hooker. It ultimately turned the game and, although Ignatians set about trying to rescue the game, they could make no further in-roads.
Head coach Gary Phillips said: “We played our best rugby of the season and St Albans were hardly in the game in the first-half, but our ill-discipline proved costly.”
Currently, sitting tenth in the league, Ignatians will be seeking to atone on Saturday 26 October when Tabard are the visitors.