A cold and wet Friday night, and to the dismay of some – Rugby was still on. In fact I don’t think they ever shut Wakehurst Park. After arriving there you’d hardly have known it had rained (with the exception of all the wet stuff falling on us during the game). So we were set for our third clash with a classy Wakehurst outfit whom had given us a good run for our money each time we have met.

We had more than the usual setbacks prior to this game. Max McKay broke his ankle playing rugby league for his school and is out for the season. Hugo withdrew the morning of the game and James, Tom and Alex all pulled themselves from their sickbeds to fill their spots in the team. On top of this Jake was stung on the foot by a bee and was hobbling and James Haldane (who joined us from the U9;s) came in with an ankle problem. Joey and Paul joined this rag-tag mob to give us a competitive team to take the field.

As the rain came tumbling down we began. Unfortunately no-one told the Hunters Hill team and Wakehurst came out with all guns blazing. Ninety seconds later and they had scored in the corner. The try was unconverted, and we were in the unfamiliar position of being behind on the scoreboard. Thankfully this inspired the boys and a period of good play saw us attacking their line soon after. But it took till the 10th minute for us to cross with Harry finding the corner. It was 5-5 as the kick missed and Hunters Hill swept in the changes. Not 2 minutes later Joey made a long bust and scored out wide, with the kick again missing. It remained 10-5 into the break, but we bombed a couple of tries by not running hard for the corners (why-oh-why do we continue to cut back in?) or by not passing to men in the clear. Anyway lots of stuff for us to learn from.

Half time came and went and from the kickoff a Wakehurst runner must have had spiders on him as he went for an enormous bust – almost the length of the field – no one wanted to touch him. We finally tackled him about 10 metres from our line, and from the ensuing play they went over under the posts. Déjà vu – as we had let another try in only 90 seconds after the kickoff. Why do we continue to make things hard for ourselves? A successful conversion and again we trailed 12-10.

Like the first half we came back and showed some good pieces of play as we spent numbers of minutes camped on their line before Tom crashed over under the posts in the 7th minute. Ed converted and we again lead 17-12. From here the game then see-sawed, as both sides showed some patches of attacking flair. Hunters Hill were lucky to hold them out on a number of occasions, with some great clearing kicks and some fantastic kick returns from Andrew (who was peppered at fullback in fairly ordinary conditions). We scored again with only about a minute or two left on the clock, as the forwards recycled the ball to a massive overlap with Joey crossing out wide with Harry still an option outside of him. Kick missed and final score was 22-12.

The second half was marred bit by a few high tackles and one particularly bad spear tackle that left Sam very sore and having to leave the field. The young referee did his best to contain the situation but I felt he was losing a bit of control near the end, as the Wakehurst players were continually offside at the breakdown. In the end it didn’t affect the result. I think that Wakehurst are a fairly classy team and the game was a lot closer than the scoreline suggests. We played well for most of the game – just fell asleep for first few minutes of each half. We will definitely learn a lot from that game.

On the players performances,
Forwards - Alex and Jake ran well with the ball, Liam’s backing up was very strong and all cleaned out well. Adam was quick to the breakdown and cleaned out well – a flanker in the making. Tom ran exceptionally well and supported any breaks, thus his try. James and Dan were quick to breakdown and effective at cleanout time. As a unit I’d say our whole pack didn’t defend as well as we normally do, but our scrum was solid, lineout a bit scrappy
Backs – Sam passed well and took some good blindside options when running but needs to learn to pass to man in space and not always go himself. Ed kicked well (but not enough) and ran very well, but cut inside too much. Patrick ran hard and straight – good job. Harry had limited opportunities with the ball but ran hard when given chance, also cut inside too much (back your pace). Andrew had a big game ran well but as with all other backs kept cutting inside instead of backing himself and going for the corner. As a unit I thought we had a poor defensive game but I was impressed with some patches of the attack. The set move they used worked well.
Reserves – Joey and Paul both played well when given opportunities, showed some good defence as well. James played well when given chance, had one particularly good run despite his crook ankle. Many thanks to these boys for helping out – I hope you enjoyed the experience of the game and the opportunity to belt out our team song.

Frank did the best and fairest points this week and as they are now behind closed doors they have been forwarded to Rod and Andrew for counting.

Next week we are all the way down to Newport for a 6.30pm game. As we are almost upon the finals we will start training twice a week to try to iron out some of our issues before the finals. So Tues 6.00pm-7.00pm and Thursday 5.30pm-7.00pm. I hope you can all make it.

Final Score ; Hunters Hill 22 (Tries – Harry 1, Joey 2, Tom 1, Conversions – Ed 1/2, Harry 0/2) bt Wakehurst 12 (Tries x 2, Conversions 1/2).

Yours in rugby