Clow’s late try wraps up opening day Rams win

PROUD Seb Reynolds hailed a brilliant National Division 1 opening-day win as Zach Clow’s final-play score helped Rams past hosts Sedgley Park 24-18 last Saturday, writes Richard Ashton.

The Manchester men overcame the early loss of fly-half Charlie Wardle to move 10-0 up through a Zane Ainslie try along with a conversion and penalty from the boot of Josh Ree.

Rams’ dominant scrum cut the gap with a penalty try, Ree landing another kick before skipper Max Hayman made it 13-12 at the interval.

The visitors hit the front straight after the break as Axel Kalling-Smith dotted down an Ellis Jones grubber kick, but Tigers regained the advantage with a converted Lewis Bradley effort midway through the third quarter.

More than half an hour elapsed with no further points, but Andrew Lamb timed his pass to Clow perfectly to send the speedster over on the left, Mike Cooke’s successful nudge completing the contest.

After the match, Reynolds said: “It was a very good game which swung either way. Sedgley’s first-phase attack was superb, and they really know what they’re doing, it’s well-executed and they’re a big threat — whenever they get (Rhys) Henderson on the ball something tends to happen.

“They’re clearly a good side with a lot of quality and no doubt they’ll go on to stronger things this season.

“For us we were going into the unknown. There were some things we did know, like we’d worked incredibly hard in pre-season, the new boys who have come in have added a lot of energy and some of the experienced guys had kicked on.

“But while you know how it could go, you can never be sure because things can go wrong — and at times we were tactically a little bit naïve, allowing Sedgley into the game.

“That’s going to happen, however, because you’re not going to have a perfect performance, but I thought we managed a few knocks superbly well in the second half including putting Morgan Macrae into the back row from centre.

“We lost two line-out operators, so Willo (Bicknell) had to go into the second row and be jumping with Ben (Atkins), but they did well along with Harry Stone.

“There’s a lot of freshness in the team, but I’m very proud of them because getting a win at Sedgley is a tough thing to do.

“I’m happy because they brought the energy and physicality they needed to, stayed in the fight and took the shot, they had to win it at the end.

“The scrum and line-out were both solid despite having to make changes, with James Baker out I thought Ryan Lomas and George Breese were both excellent and the challenge is now there to go and repeat that against another strong side in Dings.

“There were a couple of mistakes — both their tries came from us being inside their five-metre line — but we can’t get too frustrated with that because it’s a product of putting new players together.

“They need time to build the cohesion, but we’ll keep working on it and see how we go.”

Among the stand-out performers, especially in the second half, was debutant number eight Willo Bicknell.

And the Reynolds praised him along with the fans as he ended: “It does remind me of a young Robbie (Stapley) with the physicality, he’s got that go-forward intent and he looked like he can clearly step up to this level.

“Seeing some faces in the crowd you just appreciate how far they’ve come — Andrew Lamb’s dad is down from Scotland — and to everyone who came, thank you so much. To hear those cheers at the end was special.”

Rams host Dings Crusaders tomorrow (Saturday), kick-off 3pm.