Cougars dominate strong Leicestershire opposition in end of season rout - Hinckley vs Cougars Sunday 11th May 2008
The Cougars continued their fine recent form to record an impressive 45–0 victory over a strong Leicestershire side that in recent history had produced the likes of Leicester, England and British Lions legend, Dean Richards. Jordan Gilvear (2), Connor Reynolds (2), Aaron Thompson, Fergus Stewart and Dan Stone all ran in tries, with Luke Gowdy and Stone adding 10 points between them with the boot. The win saw Cougars maintain a five month unbeaten run in this end of season tour match.
A bigger more powerful Hinckley started the game strongly and seemed determined to put Medway to the sword. However, Cougars put in some big tackles and won some important defensive line-outs and scrums before Gilvear, playing his first game of the season, settled any away team nerves when from inside his own half he broke a couple of tackles to sprint half the length of the pitch for Cougar’s first try which Gowdy converted in off the post. There followed some hard, aggressive, attacking rugby from Cougars. Ground gained from good penetrating drives by Liam Fitzpatrick and Sam Cornell lead to a try for Reynolds, again converted by Gowdy. The restart was quickly fed to Thompson who skipped down the touchline to score Medway’s third try in the corner. Medway kept the play in the Hinckley half and were unlucky not to make more of a brilliant charge down from Ben Lazell. Some strong work from Max Fenton and Liam Fitzpatrick kept the pressure on throughout the period and Medway ended the first half with a 19-0 advantage.
For the second period Medway brought on the players challenging for first team places. The first ten minutes were played in Medway’s half but some brilliant defensive work held Hinckley back, at one stage Hinkley went over the line three times in succession only to be held up on each occasion. Finally another intelligent use of the boot from Charlie Wardzynski took the play into the Hinckley 25. Brave attacking forced a penalty 20 yards out, which found its way to captain Stewart who scored, unfortunately taking a knock to his heel which ruled him out for the rest of the morning. Hinckley piled on the pressure but Medway defended brilliantly as the match moved into the final third.
Some good work from Gilvear and Wardzynski led to Reynold’s second try of the day which was converted by Stone. The Hinckley kick-off went deep and beaten by the bounce the Medway defence looked in trouble. Eventually the ball was fed back to Wardzynski who cleared brilliantly to half-way. Shortly afterwards Gilvear broke through again and scored his second, again converted by Stone. Medway then played the game out in the Hinckley half with Fenton, Fitzpatrick and the rest of the forwards driving through. Then a penalty gave Fitzpatrick the chance to provide the feed for Stone, back from an injury, to score a well deserved try which he went on to convert and take his personal tally for the day to 11 points.
At an end of season award ceremony that followed Fitzpatrick received player of the season, Reynolds most improved player, Fenton was player of the tour and Ben Wellard received the coveted tour personality. All in all this was a great day of rugby for Cougars, triumphing 45-0 over a good Hinckley side with some excellent individual and team skills from all the players.
