Poor start proves costly for Dings Crusaders
Dings Crusaders suffered another bad day, when once again they never started playing until the game was out of their reach.
The Crusaders conceded two soft tries and 20 points before they had got out of their own half. And, despite competing well in the second half, Dings never looked like scoring as they slumped to their sixth defeat in seven weeks.
Henley opened the scoring in the third minute, when stand-off Will Fulton found himself opposite a Dings prop and sliced through for a try under the posts. He then added the conversion.
With the Dings pack unable to secure any ball, they remained under constant pressure and conceded countless penalties – two of which were converted by Fulton to give his side a 13-0 lead by the end of the first quarter.
With centre Sam Caven sin-binned on 25 minutes, Dings conceded their second try six minutes later.
From a Dings line-out 10 metres out, the ball was overthrown and went straight to Henley No 8 Matt Payne, who touched down unopposed. Fulton added the conversion to make it 20-0 at the interval.
The second half opened much as the first, with a try for the home side within minutes of the restart.
Dings had the ball under control in a driving maul on their 22, when the ball came out at the back, unseen by scrum-half Steve Plummer. It was snapped up by his opposite number, James Gaunt, who sprinted to the corner for a try.
The remainder of the half was pretty even, with Dings seeing more of the ball and spending some time in the Henley 22.
But they were unable to break a stout home defence, despite having a man advantage for nearly 20 minutes as the home side had first prop Alex Penny and then flanker Jack Henning sent to the sin-bin.
Fulton rounded off the scoring with his third penalty of the match.
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