The Twos
managed to secure a good win against Stewart's Melville on
Saturday by 24pts to 15pts despite the rustiness of the two
week festive layoff. Things didn't look good at the start
as we were easily pushed off our ball in the first scrum of
the match for a turnover but the forwards settled to battle
it out with a strong StewMel pack.
The real
difference lay in the backs where we looked dangerous on
every possession. StewMel pressed hard from the start and
we were a little off the pace but defended pretty well.
StewMel nosed in front with a penalty after 10 minutes
play.
The
conditions had improved considerably by match time - still
very windy but now not raining. We were having to work hard
in that first quarter and StewMel certainly looked the
better side when somewhat against the run of play. on 21
mins, James Fish
broke from our 22. He should really have passed the ball as
he looked to run into trouble. However he broke through the
tackles and burst through to halfway where the pass reached
Sean Reddox who sprinted in from there. Graeme Blackhall
missed the conversion in the difficult conditions.
The score
gave the Twos a much needed lift and we took control of the
game from there for the remainder of the half. James
White coming off his wing to receive the ball on the right,
powered over in the 31st minute. Three minutes later Graeme
Blackhall jinked over and this time converted to secure a
good halftime lead of 17-3.
The real
difference in the second quarter came as the forwards began
to dominate StewMel. Andrew Clark and Chris Hill were
leading lights and it was, as ever, a joy to watch the
several trademark bullocking runs from Phil Bloomer.
The
second half started as you wish all second halves to start,
by scoring within a minute of the restart. James Fish ran
through the middle of the home defense to dive under the
posts. Graeme converted to move us on to 24 pts. We then
went to sleep!
StewMel
scored a try just two minutes later and then pressed our
line hard largely due to inept tackling. StewMel were now
looking good and tried to push home their territorial
advantage and but for some mishandling could well have
punished us for our slackness. They did score again and
converted the try to complete the scoring on 65 minutes.
It was a
good win but we were holding on for much of the last
quarter. Our big loss on the day was the injury to Stuart
McGee. He and Graeme Blackhall collided in our 22 when both
tried to catch a high ball. Stuart was concussed and looked
in a bad way. An ambulance was called and he headed off to
hospital. It wasn't until later on Saturday evening before
he became fully aware of what had happened and he was
released about 11pm that night. He has a fracture to his
eye socket. He hasn't enjoyed much luck on the rugby field
of late.
On the
positive side there were good performances from the pack,
names mentioned above, James Fish was his usual influence
and Sivvy played a commanding role to settle the side at
times and keep the game in front of his forwards.
