CMK Premiers hosted Southern in a match where both teams had won the first game of the season and lost their second round match.
Stratford/Eltham started slowly, conceding a converted try and two penalties. Jordan Masters kept Stratford/Eltham in touch with two penalties. Trailing 13-6 at the break, Stratford/Eltham turned with the wind and managed to score two tries - one each to Kyle Stewart and Jason Pepper and with Masters converting both, took the lead 20-13 with under 10 minutes to go. Unfortunately, Stratford/Eltham were penalised when Southern were under pressure and Southern scored a long range try and locked the scores at 20-20 at which the score stayed.
A big effort managed to turn the ball over in the last play but we were bundled into touch 1m short of the line. Having played three of 2016's semifinalists in the first three weeks and coming away with a win and a draw is a good start to the season and something to build on. Congratulations to Willy Arnold and player of the day Jason "Barrell" Burrows for their first premier starts. Next week we are away to Clifton.
Matthew & Co Real Estate - Division One:
Friday turned out to be "not so good" for Stratford /Eltham when the Matthew & Co Real Estate Ltd Stratford/Eltham "Streltham" Division 1 team took on a strong Southern team in Stratford.
The start of the first half saw Streltham utilising their passing skills which allowed them to get the ball to winger Simon Young who dotted down in the corner scoring the first try of the game.
During the rest of this half a poorly disciplined Streltham gave away three penalty goals to Southern. Along with this, our defence gave them two easy tries, leaving us in the dust 21-5. The second half started well with player of the day Tim Fleming scoring, giving us hope for the rest of the game. This hope was unfortunately shortlived. Despite their yellow card Southern managed to score two converted tries, bringing the end score to 35-10.
- FBT Ravensdown Colts:
FBT Ravensdown Colts were at home to defending colts champs Southern.
In the first half all aspects of our game were well below the standard we set for ourselves, there were a couple of occasions where we did get the ball but just couldn't keep it going for long enough to break Southern's strong defence. We were down by 37-0 at halftime. Our tackling in the second half improved as did our set pieces but we were still making too many unforced errors. Having scored 10 tries in our previous three games we know we have the ability to be competitive but the boys are going to have to use this match as a lesson. Southern ran away with the game 65-0.