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Chester Romans welcomed the Hull Hornets and
miserable conditions to Chester Rugby Club for their first home game of the
season on Sunday. Chester deservedly coming away the victors but a rugged
Hull side remained in the game for a lot longer than people may have give them
credit for.
Hull won the toss and chose to receive and
immediately from their first play gave the ball to strong St.Lucian running back
St Pierre for a five yard gain, The Roman defense were subjected to this
monotonous onslaught of St Pierre all game, with the running back accepting the
hand off from his quarterback for the majority of the game if not all but a
handful of offensive plays on the day. All credit to the running back he
had the stamina to keep going all game without showing signs of tiredness or
weakness and it regularly took several Romans to bring him down. The Roman defense
this year has so far stood strong and there were several defenders in double
figure tackles by the end of the game, taking nothing away from them the Roman defense
they found St Pierre often with 3, 4 and 5 tacklers arriving at once such is
their determination to get the job done this year.
The first half was not helped by the conditions and
neither team could mount any serious drive, Chester being the only team to
break into the opposition’s red zone area, only to turn the ball over to Hull.
Only once did Hull look like scoring and that came on the play following the
turnover on Hull’s own 19 yard line. St Pierre managed to elude 2 tackles and
seemed to be in the clear and destined to score down the sideline, Roman cornerback
Mark Donald managed to sprint across from the far side of the field and tackle
the big running back deep into Chester’s half, a flag on the play for an
illegal block in the back by a Hornet brought the play back to the Roman 39
yard line. With both defenses not giving much up, the half ended at 0-0.
The Romans received the ball in the start of the
third quarter and immediately a more determined offense took the field. The
Romans began to move the ball well on the ground, getting 6 first downs in a 13
play drive which saw Roman running back James Tootle get big gains of 23 and 16
yards to move the ball down to The Hornets’ 6 yard line, The Romans were
immediately hit with a 5 yard penalty on the next play for offside and resumed
their drive with first and goal from the 11 yard line. Glyn Chadwick ran the
ball for 9 yards down to the 2 yard line, but immediately left the game
following an accidental late hit to his head from a Hornet defender whilst
Chadwick was on the ground, The Romans went backwards on the next 2 plays
before James Tootle ran it into the end zone on fourth down to give the
Romans a 6-0 lead, the extra point wasn’t converted.
The Roman defense worked well as a unit following the
kick off with no less than four 5 and 6 man tackles keeping the Hornets penned
inside their own half and when they couldn’t convert on fourth down and 1 yard
to go following a Dave Goodall and Rich Posnett tackle in the backfield. Romans
took over on the Hornet 41 yard line, and steadily moved the ball over the
next 8 plays down to the Hornet 12 yard line, when James Tootle managed to jink
his way through the defense and break the plain of the endzone to score the
Romans second touchdown. The 2 point attempt failed but the Romans led 12-0 as
the third quarter came to an end.
Both sides had 3 possessions in the fourth quarter,
Hull turning the ball over on downs twice and being intercepted by Mark Donald
on the other, the Romans were forced to punt twice and time expired as they
took a knee at the end of the game.
Chester will be happy with their win, if not their
overall performance, and their second clean sheet in 3 games and remain
undefeated for the season sitting in second place in the division with a
record of 2 wins and 1 tie. Some notable performances including Dave Goodall
finishing with an amazing 21 tackles and 1 sack and Mark Donald who ensured his
punts gave the Hornets the ball inside their 20 yard line every time he was
called upon. James Tootle, whose two touchdowns now take him to five for the
season, ran for over 80 yards. The Romans now have a couple of weeks off before
facing Glasgow Tigers at Chester on 7th June.