BURNTWOOD edged a tough fixture at Aston Old Edwardians with a late Kian Carter penalty goal earning his side a 10-7 win.
It was a contest that could have gone either way, although Jack Johnson’s team will feel that they had enough opportunities to seal the deal more comfortably.
Time and time again, particularly in the first half, they established good field position but either their normally reliable line out play or handling errors let them down. They also met some solid defence by the home side who forced some of those errors.
The pattern was set early on with a scoring pass out to Dan Clements going behind him and then a try from a line out move ruled out for a forward pass.
Two more chances came and went before the hosts went through the phases to progress downfield on the half-hour mark, but the move ended in a penalty against them.
Their next also came to nothing, but it cost Burntwood the services of Ben Holt who suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Harry Heath.
Just when it looked like the first half was going to end scoreless, the visitords broke the deadlock. A catch and drive close to the line saw them stretch over for the try. The successful conversion ended the half.
Having taken the lead, the hosts were fired up and made a strong start to the second period. They earned a penalty kick at goal just three minutes in, but the ball stayed left of the posts. They were then held up over the line which allowed the visitors to clear.
The home side’s momentum was stalled on 47 minutes when they lost a centre to a yellow card, shortly followed by a second as Carter’s chip and chase had the home defence in trouble. However, during their absence, Burntwood failed to score despite a series of pick and go efforts close to the try line.
They finally drew level after 67 minutes though. A dominant scrum on halfway set the backs in motion before good running and passing by Billy Fisher and Aidan Barker sent Clements round behind the posts to give Carter an easy conversion.
Ten minutes later, Carter’s break out from his own 22 led to a series of phases which ended with the hosts infringing and Carter kept his nerve to put his side ahead with three minutes left.
Aston Old Edwardians tried to respond from deep in the time remaining, but their desire to retain possession saw them penalised more than once to allow Burntwood to keep them at bay until the final whistle.
If tries were at a premium for the first team, Dan Black’s second team had few problems in finding the opposition line in their fixture away to Stoke 2nds.
They crossed seven times to return with a 46-0 win to make it five league games on the trot without defeat to move up to third in the table.
Tom Pockson scored his second hat-trick of tries in two games with Ben Finney also achieving the same feat. Sean Brennan was the other try scorer. Adam Evans kicked four conversions and a penalty to complete the tally.
Despite the two hat-tricks, Jacob Sonderlo was Burntwood’s man of the match for his play in the forwards, particularly his line out work.
