Five Ways OE 2's 3 Spartans 3's 47

Spartans III’s welcomed back Anthony Hodgetts, Steve Anthill, Dan Reeves and Carl Todd into their team, and all four made the scoreboard as the team enjoyed another league win away to Five Ways Old Eds on Saturday afternoon. With the hosts short of backs, Spartans gave their opposition a player to equalise the numbers. Many thanks to James who played admirably for Five Ways.
In a stop start game which never allowed either team to find any rhythm, it was once again the Spartans forwards who dominated the set piece. This platform game Anthony plenty of time to play at will and it was a well-placed kick over the defence that started the scoring, when George Hesketh collected a cross field kick and run away for the try.
Five ways got on the scoreboard straight from the restart with a well taken penalty after Spartans infringed at the breakdown.
Spartans weren’t without casualties as two of the backs, Dan and Adrian were injured early on in the game. Luke came on for Dan in the centres and Stephen for Adrian on the wing and it was the replacement right winger who got Spartans the next 5 pointer, scorching onto a well-timed pass after a good turnover to score in the corner.
Five Ways defended belligerently, but never troubled the Spartans line. Carl and Luke in the centres were making big holes in the hosts defence. The Spartan forwards got into the act, running straight and hard from breakdowns and restarts. Notable runs from Mike “Tiger” Long, Simon Pearson, Steve Gould and Liam all made ground, tiring the hosts and putting them on the back foot. However, with the ref not playing much advantage, it was set piece after set piece that saw Toddy receive a deft pop pass from Hodgetts after another powerful scrum that saw him go through a number of defenders to score.
Such was the power from the Spartan pack, Five Ways were forced to remove a prop through injury, making the scrum uncontested. This was the third time this season that the pack, led from the front by Judd “juddy” Smith, had broken the opposition scrum.
With a few minutes to go before the break, the hosts showed confusion at the restart which resulted in the ref ending the half early, Spartans three try’s to the good.
Spartans made a number of changes at half time, supplying the depleted Five Ways side with another player to bolster their numbers, but it was Spartans who started the second half strongest with two quick try’s from Dan Reeves, showing excellent pace and awareness to score from within his own half.
Further try’s from a strong run by Spartan’s number 8 Glenn Gordon and fly half Anthony Hodgetts who also got into the act with a stealthy run up the blind side after another good set piece. Even though Spartans score 7 try’s and Anthony converted a number of them, the ref had the final score at 36 – 3.