Stafford sign off in style
Stafford turned on the style as they bid a fond farewell to their Castlefields base.
With the club heading to Coopers Park, the senior side ended their stay at their old home with a seven-try demolition of Silhillians in the third round of the Intermediate Cup.
The hosts came flying out of the blocks and left their visitors reeling with an impressive opening blast
The two team haven’t been in the same league since 2012/13 which was the Silhillians promotion winning season. The last time the teams met in the cup was 24th September 2011 when Stafford travelled down the M42 to snatch a narrow one-point win 29-30.
A spiralling Silhillians kick off was secured by Stephen Frost, the ball was shipped through hands for Sefanaia Bulumakau to tear through the defence before slipping in Christian Ureche for the opening try.
Silhillians weren’t allowed to settle and from the restart they were pinned deep in their own half. Some strong scrummaging tested the defence before the ball was whipped across the pitch for Sefanaia Bulumakau to add a second try, converted by Christian Ureche.
Stafford continued to press and extended their lead courtesy of a penalty from Ureche.
Silhillians rallied with an unconverted try before a yellow card reduced them to 14.
temlay drove them into the home side half for the first time in the game, simple passing rugby stretched the defence and found its reward through a try. The visitor’s resurgence was abruptly halted when an errant hand slapped down an attacking Stafford ball to earn a yellow card temporarily reducing them to a battling fourteen on the pitch.
A penalty from Ureche kept the scoreboard ticking over and after seeing their full compliment of players restored, the visitors were hit by another yellow card.
Stafford took full advantage with Alosio Yamoyamo crashing over and Ureche again adding the extras. The final score of the half saw Ted Dinning touch down to put the hosts 30-5 up.
The second half was more competitive and Silhillians struck first with an unconverted try. But that was as good as it got for the visitors with Stafford adding tries from Dan Mills (two) and Sefanaia Bulumakau and conversions from Ureche and Louis Dewsbury.
