Sutton Win On The Road

On Saturday Sutton 3s masquerading as Sutton Tigers/Lions made the short journey to play Birmingham Exiles by the airport. In a somewhat tetchy disjointed game Sutton prevailed on a wide gluepot of a pitch by 41 points to 15 with the Exiles’ points coming from 3 unconverted tries in the last 15 minutes.
Sutton made a flying start with Alex Roberts striding half the length of the pitch for a try converted by Chris Duckworth for an early 7 point lead. That score set the scene for a haphazard performance by the men in green as most of the tries were individual long range efforts without much recourse of teamwork!!
The scrums were fairly even but the Sutton lineout was dominant with possession easily gained as was territory. With the temptation of a wide pitch and an opposition that pushed up Sutton tried to get the ball out wide to quickly without the patience of going through the phases. The two remaining tries of the first half were similar as first Tom Foulsham wrongfooted the defence with the juggle of a long pass from veteran prop Dave Smith, to go over from about 35 metres out and then Mark McEvoy shredded the defence as he cantered half the length of the pitch to register a try. As both tries were unconverted the half time score was 17-0 to the visitors.
After wholesale changes at half time Exiles had much of the ball and territory without scoring. Predictably Sutton broke out of defence 3 times to register 3 more long distance tries as Ben Morgan scored twice and TJ Allwood scored the best try of the afternoon as a fine pass by the returning Sam Harris put TJ away down the right touchline for a good try. Harris’ return was welcome after 4 months out with injury. The other try for Sutton came from the prolific Chris Duckworth who danced through the defence for an individual try.(He may have even passed to a teammate once or twice during the course of the match!!) He was also successful with 2 further conversions for a final score of 41-15 with one of those 3 late tries being set up by Dave Smith who stood in for an Exiles prop late on in the game as did Scott Toy and Dave Sandford! So Smith had the distinction of setting up a try for both sides. For Sutton it was a welcome runout after 6 weeks of inactivity!!