Matthew & Co Stratford Senior B team had their first home game for the season against Southern on Saturday.
Putting the previous game behind us, we wanted to start off strong in the first half. Missed tackles crept back into our game to give Southern the first points on the board. This gave the southerners a roll on and within no time we were down 27-0. Positive talk from Jared Coster, Gary Old and Glen Law saw the team fight back and Alex Forsyth put our first points on the board by scoring Stratford's first try. Robert Kauika scored out wide for our second, then Jai Grant made a break from the midfield, offloaded to Fraser McDonald to drag the score back to 27-17 at half time.
Stratford scored first in the second half, with a quick tap from Gary Old catching the Southern defence napping, that closed the score to 3. Several missed tackles and silly chip kicks let the visitors back in with four unanswered tries in the second half. We were really making it hard for ourselves. When we finally decided to hang on to the ball, Kurt Patterson went over in the corner to score our last points, Southern winning 59-29. Stratford showed that when they can keep the ball in hand they are dangerous and the tries will flow. Gary Old picked up player of the day.