St Albans Centurions break the 50-point barrier at London Skolars

RLC Southern Premiership

London Skolars 18 St Albans Centurions 52

ON the warmest day of the year the Cents travelled to North London to play the Skolars reserve team in the Southern Premier League. The Skolars fielded five players from their RFL Championship One team.

Playing up the slope the Cents were soon on the scoresheet when centre Rudi van der Merwe scored a try. This came from some strong running from the Centurions forwards and a quick play the ball allowed a gap to appear in the Skolars defence. Brett Welsh converted.

Pressure from the kick off on the Skolars caused them to make mistakes and forced the Skolars to drop out from under their post. From this the Centurion forwards drove the ball back into the Skolars 10 metres. With a quick play the ball and quick hands down the line Darren Westhead was sent in for a try.

Centurions then gave away two penalties and the Skolars made over 60 metres with their kicks. A quick tap caught the Cents defence short in numbers out wide and the Skolars were on the score sheet with a try.

The Centurions soon hit back when from the kick off Skolars knocked on and from the scrum one drive to the Skolars posts and a quick play the ball allowed second row Brett Welsh to crash over and he converted his own try.

Skolars then started to give away penalities for holding down in the tackle. Centurions took a quick tap and this resulted in stand off Matt O’Rourke going through the gap left out wide by the Skolars to score. The Skolars started to miss tackles and ex-Skolars player Ollie Fountain ran through them twice to score tries just before half time these were converted by van der Merwe and Adam Kal. The Centurions led 32-4 at the break.

Centurions were now playing down the slope and when second row Adam Kambouris stripped the ball on a one to one tackle on the Skolars 10 metres line a quick play the ball went right for stand off Matt O’Rourke to go through the Skolars defence and score.

The Centurions then seem to go away from their game plan and started to make mistakes but the Skolars did not use this to their advantage. With 20 minutes left the Centurions got back on track and from another quickly taken tap penalty on the half way line prop Keir Bell burst through the Skolars defence. Bell ran 20 metres but as he tried to play the ball quickly the Skolars were penalised for holding down. From this Cents’ centre van der Merwe raced round the Skolars defence to score and Welsh converted.

From the kick off the Cents knocked on and from the scrum Skolars came back and scored near the post which they converted. Skolars turn to knock on from the kick off and from the scrum centre van der Merwe came inside on the burst and scrum-half Adam Kal sent a flat ball for van der Merwe to run onto and go on to score his hat trick. This was converted by Adam Kambouris.

Then came the try of the match. Second row Johnno Elvin ran through a tired Skolars defence running 40 metres and excellent backing up from Westhead allowed him to take on the ball. Westhead continued to make ground then off loaded back to Johnno Elvin who finished off in the corner for the try.

With 10 minutes on the clock left Skolars ran in two tries. The Centurions defence were feeling the heat and some missed tackles let in the Skolars to give a final score 52-18 to Centurions.

Next week the first team have a week off but are back at Cotlandswick on June 19 to play 2009 West London Sharks kick off 2.30pm. The match marks the halfway point of the season.

But on Saturday June 12th the Centurions A team will play Norwich City in the Eastern Region kick off 2.30pm at Cotlansdwick.