The boys from Hunters Hill made the trek to Newport on Friday night for the last game before school holidays. Luckily we had an unaffected line-up as everyone was available with the addition of Paul McCaffrey (re-)joining us for the game.

We had trained very well during the week and I was expecting a big performance from the boys. But there were a few nerves (mine anyway) as they ran onto the field and it was apparent that the Newport side had a couple of much bigger boys compared to us. So it was game on.

Sam was our captain this week and he chose to run uphill the first half – a wise decision I thought.

Hunters Hill kicked off and for the first 2-3 minutes Newport were on the attack and looking very much the dominant side. But it took some overly aggressive play from the opposition to waken from our slumber. The referee managed to diffuse a potentially volatile situation whereby one of the Newport boys kicked a Hunters Hill player on the ground. But as he didn’t see the incident the referee just called a scrum. For the record - No Hunters Hill players were responsible for any foul play and we just substituted our player involved to calm the situation. NO ONE was sent off (if anyone was confused).

Anyway back to the game

From here Hunters Hill began to dominate all the play and they were clinical. We pressed the line and it was only a matter of time before Sam crossed to have us up 5-0. A difficult conversion went close, but no cigar.

For the rest of the game our forwards were awesome. Be it at scrum time winning multiple tight heads or in the clean out we were as efficient as ever. James Rennie’s running game was excellent whilst I couldn’t split the rest of the pack with Alex, Adam, Jake and Liam all playing key roles in the front row. Tom, Dan and Hugo all played major roles from the back of the scrum and played them well.

The 1st half went pretty much the same way from here with Eddie and then Paul crossing for more tries to have us up 15-0 at the break.

Whilst I’ve already mentioned the forwards whom continued their good form, I was just as pleased with the backs. They talked amongst each other in defence, and we even began to develop a kicking game to help alleviate any pressure we were under. Positionally it was our best performance as Andrew was fantastic in the new roving fullback role, whilst Patty and Max ran as hard as I’ve seen them. Sam’s pass was on target and this helped Ed give the back line the direction it needed, via the running and kicking game. Harry’s chase of a kick in the second half I thought was a real highlight and a new aspect to our game. We even managed to attempt a few set plays that very nearly came off. Great stuff.

Ironically the second half began same as the first as we took a few minutes to find our feet again. But like the first half once we got the ascendancy it was shut the gate. Tries to Paul, Max and Ed and 2 conversions including a super kick from Harry out wide saw us finish 34-0 victors. Newport did put some pressure on very late in the game but we held our line and kept the sheet clean. We seem to have a lot of running in the second parts of each half and are taking full advantage of our tiring opposition.

We did experiment with some positional changes in the second half to give us some cover for later in the season. Tom into backs and Patty into forwards and this worked well so we will try some more next time.

Points for this game (thanks Frank) went to James (3), Ed (2) and Adam and Tom (1 each).

Final Score ; Hunters Hill 34 (Tries – Eddie (2), Paul (2), Max and Sam (1), Conversions – Eddie 1/3, Harry 1/1, Max 0/1, Sam 0/1) beat Newport 0.

So we are now 3 from 3 with a few weeks break till rugby resumes. Our next game is at home against Forest – Training will be on during the holidays for those of you around, but remember that this week we will train on Tuesday as the Waratah’s players will be at Boronia Park.

Thanks to everyone that helped out (especially Manager - Andrew, Trainer - Chris and Linesman - Paul) and we will see you all at training.

Coach Ben