2004/5 SEASON | Hendon | Totts | Saracens Ams | Ignations | Woodford | Hemel | Watford | Totts | Hackney | Saracens Ams | Hendon | Harrow | Letchworth | Watford | Ilford | Hatfield | Upper Clapton | West London | Mill Hill | Aylestone
Mill Hill
28th August 2004
Friendly Vs Mill Hill (away)
Result = 0-28
After a good result last week away in Leicester Ashmole were hoping to continue there winning run, but more importantly for them would be their performance as opposed to the result.
Both sides agreed to use this as a trial match with rolling subs and a squad of 20 to 25. This gave Emile the chance to try out new players and also players in different positions as well as fine tuning moves.
The conditions were perfect, soft ground, warm weather and no wind the question would be could OA's capitalize on it.
They started very slowly and the first 30 mins could only really be described as a disaster, full back hunter eventually scoring in the corner after his earlier drop kick attempt fell just short. They were the only real highlights of the half for Ashmole who looked very poor, the forwards were far to slow to the rucks and mauls and in the tackle situation they either threw the ball away or had it stripped from them by an aggressive and physical Mill Hill pack.
The second half was a better improvement but the OA's pack will be especially disappointed with their display, losing several scrums against the head or being turned through the ninety degrees. The game felt more like a sevens match with loose passes and lone players attempting to run through the field on there own, something which we are not used to seeing from Ashmole.
An Ashmole team on fire as we saw many times last year would have put 50 points on Mill Hill, but as this game showed there is still a lot of work for them to do.
It was certainly not a negative performance; there were good performances from fly half Neal Granger and flanker Gert as well as a welcome return for winger Mark Smith (batman) who marked his recovery from injury with a nice try. It was also again another outstanding kicking display from Matt Hunter who put another 100% record under his belt.
All in all another good win and they can also take heart that in two matches they have yet to concede a point.
Scorers = Hunter, James, Damian, Mark (batman)
Conversion/Pens = Hunter (cons) x4