Lichfield’s final league game was somewhat of a dead rubber against the league champions Old Halesonians.
But that didn’t stop a large crowd turning out to witness some fine flowing rugby.
Lichfield started the brightest, moving the ball wide and stretching the Old Hales defence. Errors from both teams saw promising counter attacks start, but never finish.
The Greens struck first with decisive, powerful running all round, before the ball was moved to Luke Massey to score. Massey then stepped up to convert from the touchline.
It took only minutes for Old Hales to strike back. A promising Lichfield attack breaking down, allowing the opposition to counter attack from deep to score.
That was very much the story of the half – the Greens scored, made a mistake and Old Hales scored.
At half time, Lichfield trailed 19-12, but it was evident they’d been playing all the rugby.
The second half started frantically, with both teams showing positive intent.
It was again Lichfield who struck first, with an excellent team try finished off by Greg Massey. His conversion levelled the scores, and when the resulting kick off didn’t go ten metres, a well worked midfield scrum saw him run the half, avoiding defenders with pace and power to score an excellent solo try. The conversion was missed, but the Greens had regained the lead.
The impetus remained in Lichfield’s favour, and their pressure was rewarded when Luke Massey struck a fantastic penalty from 40 metres out to take the score to 19-27.
The 15 minutes that followed hammered home the importance of 80 minutes of play, as Lichfield switched off and made too many mistakes, allowing Old Hales to score three unanswered tries, two converted, and take the game away from their opponents.
Lichfield did have the final say, with superb team play saw the ball moved from sideline to sideline, before Paul Maxwell-Keys gave a neat dummy to score.
With the score at 39-32, Lichfield had only minutes to go from the kick off. Everything looked promising, until the ball was once again spilled. Old Hales gathered and calmly saw out the dying seconds.
Lichfield: McDonough, Gabbitass, Bassett (c), Thompson, Squire, Doubleday, Milner, Burton; W Cotterhill, L Massey, B Rowlands, Winter, Adams, D Rowlands, G Massey. Subs: Machin, Maxwell-Keys and Evans.
