Still room for improvement despite bonus point win for Crewe & Nantwich

A good sized crowd turned out in the autumn sunshine for what resembled a game of chess for the first quarter of the game with both teams cancelling each other out as well as giving away numerous penalties particularly at the breakdown.
The game came to life on 25 minutes when after a period of pressure inside the Kidderminster 22 meter line, the away team’s flanker was yellow carded and sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes for continued infringements at the ruck.
This proved to be costly for the visitors as finally the pressure that Crewe had applied paid off when centre, Toby Russell-Vick ran onto a pass from a ruck, 3 meters short of the try line to crash over and score a try much to the delight of the home crowd. The try was converted by Crewe No.10 Jim Creighton to make it 7-0 to Crewe with 31 minutes on the clock.
Immediately from the restart Crewe returned deep into their opponents half with centre pairing Andre Zwijnen and Toby Russell-Vick running hard towards their opponents who were fire fighting and just about clearing their area from wave after wave of Crewe attack.
It was from a stray clearance that Crewe scored their second try of the game just as the first half was drawing to an end. The loose Kidderminster kick was gathered invitingly by Zwijnen who ran directly into the opponents half, sending two of them flying with immaculate hand-offs before popping a short pass to Crewe no.7 Alistair Lang who sprinted through the gap created by Zwijnen, leaving the trailing Kidderminster defenders in his wake before diving over the try line for a wonderful score just as they seemed like catching him.
Creighton missed the conversion and the first half ended Crewe & Nantwich 12 – 0 Kidderminster.
Crewe started the second half in the same manner they had finished the first, by making direct runs at pace towards their opponents. Captain Eli Woodward, No.8 Elliot Alston and the marauding centre pairing of Zwijnen and Russell-Vick were causing Kidderminster all sorts of problems throughout the match and if it had not been for some bad handling errors or poor judgement at key times, the difference in the score could have been far greater than the 12 points as it stood.
Kidderminster closed the deficit when they scored a penalty against the run of play to make it 12-3 to Crewe.
The home team’s pressure paid off and seven minutes into the half, Russell-Vick broke through the Kidderminster defence to score his second try of the match, which went unconverted but extended Crewe’s lead to 17-3.
Kidderminster seemed to be running out of steam and ideas as they tried to find a way back into the game. When they did manage to get into the Crewe half, they faced a dogged defence, particularly at the break down with Crewe No.7 Lang putting in a terrier like performance to salvage the ball at rucks.
Crewe piled on the pressure but time and again a handling error or misjudged pass saw great opportunities being missed by the home team. That was until Crewe skipper Eli Woodward capitalised on an error when he intercepted a poor Kidderminster pass to break free and showed a good turn of pace for a front row forward to score Crewe’s 4th try of the afternoon which, was duly converted by the boot of Creighton,
Halfway through the second half the score was 24 -3 to Crewe and the home supporters sensed that the floodgates would now open and the home team would run in a few more tries. However that wasn’t the case and due to a combination of ill discipline and poor passing Kidderminster to their credit scored a try which was also converted making the score 24-10 to Crewe.
For a while the home team looked rattled and lost their shape and discipline again. Crewe No.6 David Germain received a yellow card and was sent to the sin bin for infringement at the ruck close to the Crewe 5 meter line. Kidderminster took full advantage of having the extra man by scoring another try with 10 minutes to go.
The try went unconverted but the visitors looked like they wanted to make a game of it after looking like they were going to be on the receiving end of a proper spanking at one point. Crewe had allowed them back into the game and the score now was 24-15 to the home team.
From the restart, it looked like the Crewe players had woken up to the fact that the visitors had their tails up and that they looked determined to mount a serious comeback. Crewe adopted to kick the restart deep into the Kidderminster half. From there they worked to pen their opponents back.
A poor clearance kick by Kidderminster found Crewe winger, Grant Coiley, who jinked his way through several tackles before being felled. From the ensuing ruck, Crewe’s captain, the industrious Eli Woodward broke clear again on one of his powerful runs with the Kidderminster backs at his tail. Just as it looked like he was going to score his second try of the match, he unselfishly flipped a short pass into the hands of replacement flanker, Matt Standley to score Crewe’s fifth and final try of the game underneath the posts.
Creighton converted to make the final score 31-15 to which earned Crewe a bonus point and pushes them back up the table to 4th place after winning 3 from 4 of their opening games of the season.
Following the game, Crewe Head Coach, Peter Allen said, “I’m pleased with the result against Kidderminster, bouncing back with 5 points after the loss against Whitchurch was important but in terms of the performance it was below par. We made far too many fundamental errors in the first half particularly and fortunately Kidderminster were not able to capitalise on them. We hope to challenge for the league title but in order to do so our basics need to be more consistent. There were some big performances from André Zwijnen in the centre and man of the match Alistair Lang who was relentless in defence. We travel to Leek next week with confidence but we need to step up our game if we hope to get a result away from home”