Clee Hill, Saturday 8^st December, Home, Won 21-15

This week saw Royces welcome Clee Hill to Victory Road in Round 5 of the EDF National Junior Vase. The side was again much changed, with some familiar faces returning to the back line.

Royces were playing into the wind and driving rain in the first half and couldn’t have wished for a better start with Sanderson gathering from the kick off, beating some hapless tackles to touch down under the posts, ably assisted by his rubber legs. Conversion successful, 7-0. Clee Hill hadn’t come to Derby just for a day out and took the game to Royces in the forwards and were particularly dominant in the scrum. Following a scrum deep in the Royces 22 Clee Hill crashed over in the corner, conversion missed 7-5. Royces rallied and pushed Clee back into the 22, from a resultant ruck a Clee player was shown a yellow card for misplacement of his boot down Sanderson’s back 5 yards away from the action. Trying to press home the man advantage Royces continued to attack, but clearly still recovering from his 60m run in the first minute Sanderson fancied a break and handled the ball on the floor in front of the ref, 5 metres from the opposition line for no apparent reason. This earned him a yellow card to add to his ever-growing collection.

Using the elements Clee Hill drove up field into the Royces 22 and again crashed over in the right hand corner, conversion missed 7-10. Just before half time Royces were awarded a penalty midway inside the Clee half, skipper McLaughlin stepped up to send the sides in level at 10-10.

Royces started the second half well and soon scored their second try, Lawrence Betty making a break up the right and getting the pass away for Tom King to score his second try in his second game. Conversion missed, 15-10. Again Clee Hill rallied and pressed hard to draw level, with solid defence from Royces keeping them at bay. With 15 minutes remaining after a series of attempts, Clee Hill scored in the right hand corner. Conversion missed and the sides were level at 15-15. Soon after the restart Royces thought they had made the breakthrough only for the pass to be ruled forward. In the final 5 minutes Clee Hill laid siege to the Royces line, with some outstanding ‘intelligent’ defence keeping them out and sending the game into extra time, much to the delight of the front five, who now had the ‘opportunity’ of 20 minutes extra ‘fitness’ work.

Mid way through the first period of extra time Royces drove 30 metres from a lineout and McLaughlin (aided by several thermal pockets) slotted an excellent drop goal from near the 10 yard line, 18-15. The second half of extra time saw Clee Hill seemingly run out of steam and Rolls-Royce finally start to assert some authority. Now territorially on top and bossing the game up front they were soon awarded a penalty, which McLaughlin gratefully accepted and slotted with the coolness of an eskimo in an ice bath, 21-15. Realising they now needed a converted try to win Clee Hill pushed hard, but similar to how the second half ended, some outstanding Royces defence kept them at bay to earn themselves a hard fought 21-15 victory and progression to the last 32 of the EDF National Junior Vase.

Credit due to Clee Hill RFC who made the long journey from Shropshire and showed Rolls-Royce how to play proper cup rugby with great heart and commitment and never say die attitude - pity it took Royces 80+ minutes to realise!

Special mention to Ed Barker who gave up his afternoon to run touch, its fair to say he took a novel approach to the role, keeping the crowd in anticipation throughout the game, using his swede he made the right decisions from distance. Man of the match was Paul McLaughlin. Next week Royces return to league action at Victory Road against Dronfield.

Team: Jon Peacock, John Scott, Duncan Myres, Lawrence Betty, Tom King, Paul McLaughlin, Dave Poole, Luke Daigneault, Adam King, Ady Gregory, James Gormley, Malcolm Lee, Mike Brown, Dan Sanderson, Alex Gill. Subs: Iwan Ranft, Marko Maseko, Greg Fowler, Ed Barker.