Blaydon secure a try bonus point, away at Esher

Esher 42 Blaydon 29

There is just no stopping Jason Smithson at the moment . For the second week in succession the Blaydon back-row forward touched down a second half hat-trick of tries to take his total to a staggering 24 for the season so far, and is clear leading try scorer in the League.
Unfortunately for Blaydon the opposition also had a prolific scorer on the day, Esher full-back Alistair Chisholm who contributed 27 of his side’s points with 2 tries, 4 conversions and 3 penalties.
To Esher then the honours but Blaydon were good value for their try bonus point, and but for some poor tackling early on and then a disastrous 6 minutes before half-time could have been much closer.
Chisholm took advantage of a superb off-load to score the opener on 15 minutes but almost from the restart Blaydon scrum-half Nathan Horsfall intercepted in his own half and raced clear to level, Tom Penny converting.
Chisholm and Penny then exchanged penalties and it was 10-10 approaching the interval. By the whistle however Esher winger Andrew Wright, benefiting from a missed tackle and then an overlap, had run in 2 tries and Chisholm had landed another conversion and a penalty to take it to 27-10.
With the elements behind them Blaydon pressed forward and Smithson grabbed his first – from a driving maul of course. Esher hit back with Chisholm’s second but Smithson struck again, Ian Tench added a 5th for the home side and sure enough the Blaydon back-rower responded once more.
This time the coup-de-grace was the same but the more remarkable as 2 sin-bins had reduced Blaydon to 13 men and they were still dominating the home pack.

John Brennan