Ilkeston Colts vs Coalville RFC Colts

Ilkeston Colts 7 Coalville Colts 40

Coalville Colts returned to action last Saturday with a trip up the M1 to Ilkeston who are always a friendly but well drilled and competitive side.

An early kick off forced the withdrawal of a few key Coalville players but provided opportunity to shuffle the side and look at players in alternative positions as well as hand a full debut to the U16 player, Harvey Towers, who coped brilliantly with the step up in age group and put in a terrific defensive performance.

Remembering the closeness of last season’s fixture, Coalville were keen to apply early pressure and dominated from the kick off, turning over the ball and mounting an early attack which would have resulted in a try had the last pass gone to hands.

It wasn’t long before Coalville were able to convert pressure into points thanks to a fine individual run from Ollie Chamberlain who was able to break two attempted tackles and round the Full Back to score under the posts.

Coalville continued to dominate possession but it was Ilkeston who were next to score with a great team try well finished off by their inside centre who had looked threatening from the off. Conversion missed, Coalville led 7-5.

This score appeared to wake up the away team and spur them into action once again and it wasn’t long before they were mounting another attack, this time started by a brilliant pick and go from the athletic Hooker, Owen Roberts that moved Coalville deep into the Ilkeston half. This seemed to rally the rest of the pack to follow suit and charges from Jack Wileman and Cian Orme Herbert put Coalville into the Ilkeston 22. A great pass from scrum-half, Lawrence Standen found a Bulldozing Ben Bullen who hitting a hard line attacked the waiting defence hard and drove them back but was just held up short of the Ilkeston line. Coalville were able to recycle quickly however with the ever present work-horse Jack Halford there again to gather the ball and drive over for a well-deserved try. Tricky conversion missed, Coalville now led 12-5.

With half time approaching, Coalville were pushing to put another score between them and the home team and did so after some more fine work from Chamberlain put the Ilkeston defence on the back foot and released Fly-half Ben Phelps to attack the gaps and round 3 or 4 defenders to finish a great try under the posts- conversion successful. Half time, Coalville’s lead had now stretched to 19-5.

Whilst the 1st half was about some moments of individual brilliance, the focus of the 2nd half was to deliver a more polished team performance and Coalville didn’t disappoint. To their credit, Ilkeston were also greatly improved in the second half and were able to mount a number of promising attacks that tested the Coalville defence to the core. But ultimately it was Coalville who had the better of the tight exchanges and were able to score three more converted tries including another pair for man of the match Chamberlain.

The final whistle saw Coalville victorious by a 40-5 margin but this game was tighter than the score-line suggests and Ilkeston never gave up and threatened continually. More pleasing than the result was the performance from every player and the composure they showed throughout despite having a number of players playing out of position. Next weekend sees the Colts travel to nearby neighbours Leicester Forest before welcoming Melbourne to the Memorial Ground on Saturday 14th- 2.15pm kick off.