Anoher great awayday for the Brothers

The signs looked ominous after only ten minutes as the home side made the most of early chances with both their left and right centres crossing for the tries. Crucially both conversions were missed so it remained 8:0 to the Stags. The Brothers began to develop more cohesion especially in defence denying the home side any more points in the first half. It took the RN side 30 minutes to break their own duck but tries out wide from Emeri Ratucoko and Mike Haldenby in the last ten minutes of the half plus a great touchline conversion from Jono Bethwaite saw the advantage swing to the visitors at half time.

The home side came out full on again in the second half and almost immediately took the lead once again setting the Brothers back again. This however spurred the Visitors on and a determination to get back on top was evident as time and again RNRL broke the Hemel line as well as digging deep to defuse the Stags attack. The Hemel lead only lasted a few minutes as the brothers linked well from deep in their own half with a great break from skipper Mark Robinson who took the ball into the Stags half and clever hands brought the ball out to the RN Right for Tu Roko to push for the line before passing inside to Kev Botwood who crossed close to the posts to restore the RN lead. Ref Mickey Brighton was kept busy as the game threatened to boil over but a new sense of discipline was evident in this years Brothers so no harm done. The response again was fantastic by the RN side more pressure on the home sides line resulted in a try for Ryan Mathews, the scrum half easily beating the defence to cross under the posts and with the automatic conversion the Brothers now had an eight point lead as the game moved into the last quarter. It was still game though on and Stags continued to test the RN defence which held firm throughout with massive hits coming in from all over the field to thwart the best efforts of the home side. With only ten minutes left the Brothers scored what proved to be the decisive score, Richie Metcalfe came from deep running a perfect line to crash over again under the posts to extend the Brothers lead to 14 points. The Stags never gave up and reduced the defecit to just eight points late in the half but came up just short by the final whistle. An appeal for another Stags try was turned down in the dying moments by referee Brighton much to the annoyance of the Stags team especially the potential scorer who took no further part in the game after making his feelings know to the Official.

All in all another great performance away from home from a Brothers side who continue to develop the Player base with more and more new faces gaining much needed match experience in the Senior squad. Selection for the Senior side is no longer automatic and the squads for Inter services will present the Coaches with some difficult decisions as many players are now staking a claim on the IS Shirt.

To put the game in perspective the Hemel side was nominally an Academy side however as the first team had a blank weekend there were four or five first teamers in the Home side giving more value to the match and to the performance of the Brothers team.