Mills eyes up promotion as Park move to summit

By JOHN LYON

Caldy………………. 20pts

Tries: Penalty 39, Barlow 80

Conversions: Jones 80

Penalties: Jones 5, 23

Rosslyn Park….26pts

Tries: Marfo 21, Garvey 50, Scott 54, Dawe 72

Conversions: Holland 22, 51, 73

ROSSLYN Park scored four tries as they overcame hosts Caldy to go top of the table.

Storm Arwen brought down trees and tore off roofs close to Caldy's Paton Field, but its icy, gale-force winds didn't prevent an entertaining, close-fought game.

It was Caldy that started the brighter, with their dominant scrum and more effective work at the breakdown forcing a succession of penalties from Rosslyn Park, one of which enabled winger Ben Jones to kick the home side into a threepoint lead.

Playing into a gale is never easy, but Rosslyn Park's strategy of continuous running rugby was brilliantly executed, nullifying the home side's wind advantage.

Caldy's defence was up to the task until the end of the first quarter when, from a retreating scrum, the visitors narrowly managed to scramble the ball to winger Benjamin Marfo.

From 40 metres out, the speedster powered his way through the Caldy line to score under the posts.

Another Caldy penalty from Jones reduced the deficit to a single point and on the stroke of halftime, referee Timothy Allatt had no hesitation in awarding Caldy a penalty try after the home pack's driving maul was illegally brought down five metres out from the visitors' line.

Hero: Rosslyn Park celebrate Benji Marfo's try

PICTURES: Steve Flynn

Threat: Caldy's Elliot Gourlay makes a break

A 13-7 lead was always going to be difficult to defend against such a strong wind and so it proved.

Now utilising their kicking game, Rosslyn Park racked up three second-half tries through Samuel Garvey, Nicholas Scott and Oliver Dawe to give them the bonus-point win.

A Caldy a try from Mike Barlow in the final play brought the home side a deserved losingbonus point.

At the end of the match, there were contrasting emotions from the respective head coaches.

Rosslyn Park's Johnathan Mills was delighted with the victory.

“We knew it was going to be a difficult fixture and the conditions made it that bit harder,” he said.

“During the week, we trained specifically for the conditions and we felt that turning round only six points down was a decent position to be in.

“We are delighted to come away from Paton Field with a bonus-point win.”

Mills singled out Rosslyn Park forward Dylan Flashman as his man of the match, citing the second-row's hard graft and good line-out work.

The coach was clear on Rosslyn Park's ambitions.

“We want to play at the highest level we can as a semi-pro side and promotion to the Championship is definitely the ambition,” he said.

Their tenth win of the campaign moved them one point clear at the top of the table, above previous leaders Cinderford, who were beaten at home by Sale FC.

Meanwhile, a more rueful Matt Cairns reflected on Caldy's performance.

“That was a tight match in very tough conditions and a couple of mistakes at vital times cost us,” he said.

“We didn't get enough of a lead playing with the wind, but I was delighted with our resilience to snatch a losing bonus point against such a well-organised side.”

Caldy's third defeat from 11 matches leaves them in sixth position.