THE Ross 2nds travelled to play Quedgley & Hardwick Harlequins on Saturday, November 19th, in the latest round of merit table fixtures and won thanks to some great individual performances.

Ross started well with some excellent ball carrying from Dan Gould and Basil Parker. However, after some handling errors Ross found themselves camped in their 22 and unfortunately infringed at the breakdown and Quedgely took the lead with a penalty in front of the posts.

This inspired Ross who took the game back to their opponents with some strong runs by Joe Muldowney and TC Leech. Ross managed to break the deadlock with a barn-storming run by rugby league convert, Mathew Robinson to open their account. With the conversion missed Ross took a five points to three lead.

With team confidence high Ross took the game back to their opponents from kick-off, with some strong runs from firstly Basil Parker, then PJ Muldowney who managed to find centre, Craig Smith in space. He outpaced the covering defence to score, with the conversion added the lead was stretched to 12 points to three. In the last moments of the first half Quedgely managed to squeeze a score and with the conversion taken the score was 12 points to 10 at half time.

With an inspiring team talk from captain Craig Powell, Ross started the second half brightly with two quick scores from winger Craig Smith, and with both converted by Powell this brought the scoreboard up to 26 points to 10. Heads dropped just after the restart and Quedgely managed to pull a converted try back. Again from the restart Ross took the game back to their opponents with quick hands from Nick Creswick and Wes Downing finding PJ Muldowney in space but was held metres short of the line.

With the ball recycled, Craig Smith found space and easily outpaced the opposition to bring up try number four. With moments of the game left Ross found themselves camped in their opponents’ 22. After a few quick hands centre TC Leech burst through the defence to score. The conversion was taken and at the full time whistle Ross found themselves 38 points to 17 winners.

This was a great all round performance from all. The choice for man of the match was a hard one with great performances from PJ Muldowney, Mathew Robinson and Russell Walker playing out of position in second row, but after much debate the award goes to Basil Parker for his solid performance in the loose and strong support play. Next game Ross are away to Smith Industries.