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Under 15s - Northampton Knights V Adeyfield Dragons

Kindly sponsored by William Sutton Homes

Northampton Knights U15's got off to a winning start in the William Sutton Homes Chilterns League at Rushmills with a scrappy 42-24 win over Adeyfield Dragons. On another cold and fairly miserable morning Adeyfield traveled with a reduced squad much to the disappointment of all involved with the Knights. Even more frustrating for the Knights was having a squad of 19 available. Perhaps the disappointment of having to play reduced numbers affected Northampton as they got off to an extremely slow start much to the frustration and confusion of the watching crowd. Adeyfield made use of this posting a try after some soft defence from the Knights. The 4 was turned into 6. Northampton were stung into action by this try and the seasons leading scorer Lewis Bailey broke free from within his own half and went over under the posts for his 15th try of the winter season. Josh Dawes added the extras. Northampton then proceeded to throw their hard work in attack away by conceding another try. It has to be said that the defending was pretty poor in the opening stages and this was summed up in this try. Knights pride themselves on being very strong defensively in the middle and the first two Adeyfield tries visibly dented the Knights pride.

Beware the wounded warrior - Northampton Knights were soon back on the ball and doing what they do best, building the confidence back up in the process. The forwards laid a good platform and the backs got the ball wide. Crisp passing put Tino Decaro in a yard of space and he took 50 meters, going in under the posts from halfway for a fantastic long range try. Sam Dawes added the extras. Knights quality and power on the ball was soon starting to show. Strong running from the starting props Joe Martin and Aidan Power put us into a good attacking position deep in the opposition half before the ball found its way to Greg Wood who used silky footwork to cut inside and slice through the Dragons defence like a hot knife through butter, going in just to the left of the post for his fourth try of the season. Another fantastic try for the Knights. Josh added the two points. The next Knights try was something a prop would dream of all their life. After some intense pressure from the Knights defence the Dragons coughed up the ball. Aidan Power swooped on the loose ball and the Knights version of a human wrecking ball set off on a run to the line with God knows how many Adeyfield defenders trying to get hold of him before getting over the whitewash for his second try of the season.

The Knights purple patch continued for a little while longer as their opposition struggled to break them down and battled to halt the onslaught of strong runs and quick play the balls. Another try from within their own half followed as the ball was fed wide to Greg Wood who proceeded to release Tino Decaro with a fine offload. A player with Tino's power and pace in space was not going to be stopped despite the attempts of the rather temperamental Adeyfield player in the blue scrum cap, a provider of a fair few talking points for the crowd! After Tino's second of the game Josh added the extras The game was starting to get a little heated in the second half and the Dragons certainly had some fire, although their choice of who to pick on was certainly misguided as Rory Sarjeant rose head and shoulders above anyone on the pitch in defence putting in a hugely impressive defensive stint and rattling a few bones in the process. One tackle in particular will live long in my memory as Sam Dawes and Rory doubled up on a Dragon attacker and sent him and the ball flying in opposite directions with a textbook tackle.  At times in the second half the match started to boil over and Northampton were beneficiaries of this as a penalty gave Lewis Bailey a perfect opportunity to double his tally for the day. 

More brutal defence from the Knights forced yet another mistake from the shell shocked Dragons side in a good position for the Knights to attack from. A few tackles later and Rory Sarjeant took on the defence and provided another memorable moment with what has to be the offload of the season so far. As he was being taken to the floor he somehow managed to smuggle the ball over his shoulder to Scott Martindale who gathered the ball in and went over out wide. Unfortunately Northampton switched off for the next 15 minutes and produced the most frustrating period of play I remember us ever playing. The Knights coughed up ball after ball and eventually the Dragons got over for 3 tries.  Soon after those tries the Knights got fired up and really fronted up in defence and ensured the Dragons couldn't get over for any more points. It's just a shame it took so long for this to happen. Spurred on by the poor defence and new found aggression the Knights forced mistakes and penalties from the Dragons side. Having worked into another good position and getting another penalty the ball was fed out right to Tino Decaro who went one better than last week and completed his hat-trick to round off another fine display. This was the last score of the game and made the scores 42-24 to the Knights who, it has to be said, made hard work of the game.

Coach Patrick Wilson said, "It was good to get a win in our first league game under our belts. The lads all know that there is a lot of work to do and that we have a lot of improvement left in us yet. There were a lot of positives in patches that we will build on, our speed and power is a lethal weapon and we scored a lot of top quality tries but we all know that we need to tidy a few areas up and I'm sure the boys will be desperate to do so on Tuesday." "I thought Rory Sarjeant, Aidan Power and Tino Decaro were fantastic today. Rory played his first game of league for a while today having only got back in the country earlier this week and it was like he has never been away. His defence was sensational as was his work rate. Aidan Power's running game was excellent today, Adeyfield really struggled to get him down every time he ran the ball and he got us out of danger a couple of times with awesome running, bouncing defenders away with ease. Tino was also brilliant. Today was his second game of the season and he has now scored 5 tries in those two games. Not only does he score some fine tries he is very strong defensively and made some very important tackles. His ability to play in the backs or forwards is something that could be crucial for us this season. As they say a win is a win and in this league the more wins the better. As I said before we will again work hard in training (and hope for better Tuesday night weather!) and move on to next week which should be a very good game"

Squad; Scott Martindale, Jack Debenham, Rory Sarjeant, Greg Wood, Tino Decaro, Josh Dawes, Ben Harman, Aidan Power, Ben Hanger, Joe Martin, Jake Siddons (c), Lewis Bailey (vc), Sam Dawes, Tom Wilkinson, Dan Jones, Alex Combes, Harry Mosdell, Will Thornton, Joe Morrow

Tries; Lewis Bailey(2), Tino Decaro(3), Greg Wood, Aidan Power, Scott Martindale

Goals; Josh Dawes (3), Sam Dawes (2)

Coaches Man of The Match - Aidan Power

Players Man of The Match - Rory Sarjeant