With Rams and Titans playing their first league matches of the season at home, the Centaurs made the short journey up the A4 for a friendly against Shire Hall.

With a large number of the squad unavailable due to holiday and work commitments a fine body of men, heavily weighted (in all senses of the word) towards the forwards warmed up whilst the coaches mulled over which of the donkeys would get the short straw and have to play amongst the girls. Initial rumours circulating indicated that the opposition would face Messrs Oakley and Randall in the Centres, but these sadly proved unfounded, and it was hooker Wootton that saved the day on the wing, with back rower Clarke taking his assortment of headgear to outside centre in the latter stages of the match.

In a match of four quarters the scoring was as follows;

Q1; 5 - 0
Cents were slow out of the blocks (he said politely). Making the fatal mistake on turning their backs on 2 quick penalties, and with one missed tackle in mid-field Shire Hall took the first quarter. That said the visiting forwards did well to pinch three of the oppositions line-outs.

Q2; 0 - 10
Cents woke up, encouraged by a few motivational words from skipper Oakley and began to impose themselves on the match. With the forwards winning good ball and the backs gaining the confidence to keep the ball in hand instead of kicking it away, Randall was the first to cross the whitewash followed by Challis who burst over from outside centre.

Q3; 0 - 14
Subs were rolled on. Randall had a little lie down and Fisher attended to his runny nose. Challis scored two more tries as he grew in confidence and showed what damage can be caused by straight aggressive running. Vinluan converted both comfortably.

Q4; 7 - 12
Positional changes were made, subs moved on and with Centaurs showing higher fitness levels, the pack exerted their authority in the set piece and the backs kept pinging the ball wide. Feasey provided a constant stream of quick accurate ball from scrum half. Sharp capped a fine individual performance when he intercepted from 10 meters out and trundled over to score. Lee made amends for wasting two clear overlaps by touching down for the final Cents try, converted by Vinluan.

Whilst this was just a friendly it was good run out for the squad, with some very promising individual performances. Next week we have to step things up, hit the ground running and cut down the penalty count as we face our first league game of the season.
Bernie Leicester.