The early morning mizzle cleared away and the sun shone down on GAB 2s as they took on relegated Abingdon 2s.

GAB started the game well, pressurising Abingdon in their half, eventually forcing a penalty, struck over by Alfie Morton to begin his points haul. 0-3 GAB continued to apply pressure, Alfie this time picking up the full 7 points scoring from close range after good ground was made by the forwards. 0-10 A loss of concentration at the restart allowed Abingdon to win the ball back, and they used that territory to good effect scoring under the posts - 7-10.

This led to GAB going up a gear and despite some good inroads made by the yellow and green they were resisted in further attempts to cross the Gosford line, barely getting into the GAB 22 for the rest of the half. GAB's attacking pressure saw Abingdon not re-aligning quickly in defence, and this was spotted by flyhalf Rob Eynon who grubbered through and beat the defence to dive onto the ball for his first score of the season. Alfie added the extras 7-17

The forwards were dominant all day in the scrum and very visible in the loose. Great to see Chris Good back playing like a man 20 years younger than his passport claims he is. Gerardo Pradillo and Matt Strong moved from the backs into the back row and played like they'd always played there. The pack had again earned territory with their scrum dominance before Abingdon gave away a free kick in the scrum. A quick tap and Gerardo was on hand to power over for the final score of the half: 7-22

At half time the talk was about maintaining that pressure and not allowing Abingdon back into the game - something that had happened the previous league game at Banbury. Sadly that wasn't the case Abingdon were allowed to start getting some parity. GAB conceded a try before trying to re-energise things with a some of the bench coming on - and one of those subs was very evident in their next score - Tom Spencer playing his first game since injury last winter linking up well with Alfie Morton down the left wing, allowing the latter to score in the corner. He really should have gone closer to the posts and then maybe he wouldn't have missed the conversion... 12-27

Hoping that would spark GAB back into life, instead Abingdon got their tails up and through some hard running and good phase play managed to score twice more for a try bonus and bring the score very close at 24-27.

That finally did waken GAB back up and they put the game to bed quickly. First skipper Danny Rae crashed over, before Rob Eynon used Reece Coates as a foil to cut through. The final score came from a half break from Eynon who was just held back from his hattrick try by a determined Abingdon defender, instead giving the hattrick pass to Alfie Morton. Alfie converted all 3 tries for a final score of 24-48

Final Score: Abingdon 2s 24 - 48 Gosford All Blacks 2s

Tap Social Man of the Match: Alfie Morton

Scorers:
Alfie Morton 3T 5C 1P
Rob Eynon 2T
Gerardo Pradillo 1T
Danny Rae 1T