Erdington welcomed Birmingham Exiles to Spring Lane on Saturday afternoon. After all the formalities were undertaken the game kicked off with Exiles using the famous Erdington slope to their advantage pinning the Erdington team down in their 22 for a good 10 minutes not only were Erdington up against the slope the wind was also in Exiles favour, that being said Erdington defended wave after wave of Exiles pressure. The game then turned with Erdington breaking out of their 22 with some dogged forward pressure taking the game to the Exiles up front, after a sustained amount of hard work the ball was shipped out to the backs and some impressive play was rewarded with Riz going over in the corner, try unconverted.
This gave Erdington the impetus to take the play to the Exiles and dominate upfront especially at ruck time this proved really useful and again with an impressive run out of Erdingtons 22 by the full back and great support play by Jay saw him accelerate around the Exiles backline to score under the posts, try converted.
The game then saw both teams have some serious possession without either team bothering the score sheet, after a period of Erdington pressure and some impressive inter play between forwards and backs, saw them progress into the Exiles half the forwards with some dominant support play released the ball to Dan T scrum half who dotted down, try unconverted. That was it for the first half the teams turned around at 17-0
The second half began with Erdington using the wind and slope to their advantage with some positive positional kicking saw the Exiles camped down in their half. Erdington were awarded a couple of quick penalties in succession, the ball was tapped by Cleggy who made a charge for the line, the Exiles defence struggled to put hands on him and with the help of the forwards he scored under the posts, try converted.
From the subsequent kick off Erdington managed to get their hands back on the ball and with a neat kick through from the scrum half and pace to burn Jay won the foot race and touched down, great try converted.
Unfortunately the game came to premature end for safety reasons. Score 31-0
The coaches were extremely pleased with the performance of the players especially the support work and fitness, this was a team performance and looks really positive and the players are itching for next weeks game away at Camp Hill.