Moderns came into this game having scored 50+ points for three consecutive weekends against Leicestershire opposition. With confidence high, and conditions once more perfect for our brand of rugby, this week it was to be Aylestone St James in the firing line. Hopes were high that they would be up for the fight, and it would be a great game between arguably the form team in the league and the leagues 4th placed team, and they were up for the fight – just not a fight that involved rugby in any way!
Moderns started as the form book indicated, securing some ball and breaking the line with ease in the threequarters. This led to the first try, Jackson initiating a counter attack and engineering a 3 on 1, which allowed Ash to finish from half way. Hughes added the extras to open up an early seven point lead.
Despite the dominance in the backline, Jimmies had the early nudge in the scrum and from some good pressure they broke blind, and some uncharacteristically weak tackling allowed their 6 to cross. The conversion was missed (here’s hoping for them that their regular goal kicker was having a week off!) but they were back in the game at 5-7. They quickly doubled their tally after winger Pease stepped in from his wing to follow up his huge hit of a few minutes previous – however this time they managed to get the ball out of the tackle and their winger again profited from some poor tackling. Earlier in the season this could have been enough for Moderns’ heads to drop, but a bit of form does wonders for self belief, and these transpired to be the final points that Moderns would concede.
In fact, we were soon back in the lead after generating some good field position, the centre pairing of Gubb and Jackson still getting through the line with ease and choosing good support options. This led to a Moderns scrum in the Jimmies 22, Joe Collis doing well to pick from a scrappy scrum and feeding Petchey, who as always had the audacity and the footwork to beat 2 men in the 15 meter channel to cross in the corner. Hughes duly slotted the touchline extras, and Half time saw Moderns 14-10 to the good.
The loss of Gubb to a hurty shoulder at half time meant a minor reshuffle in the backs, with Mappy moving to 12 and the evergreen Nick Carroll breaking out from Crèche duty to come in at 10. This is a good opportunity to highlight the commitment made from a number of players to answer the call and play, even with children in tow – rumours persist that Mappy Snr. Is currently taking his NVQ 2 in childcare in anticipation of next season…
By the start of the second half, Moderns sensed that the game was there for the taking, and one of the better halves of rugby we have played for the season followed – perhaps not for the quality of the rugby itself, which was still high, but also for the discipline and bloody mindedness when confronted with a team who decided fairly early on that, to paraphrase their captain ‘we might have lost the game, but lets take a few of them out’. Moderns scored their third try from a Jimmies 22 dropout, Joe Collis setting off a move down the blindside, Jacko showing good pace to burn his marker and Pease running a great support line to cross. Hughes again slotted the conversion from wide out – the fabled Moderns goal kicking mantra that they aren’t worth slotting unless they are on the touchline may have been in play today though, as he spooned the easiest shot of the day from pretty much in front of the posts soon after…!
This try was where Aylestone regrettably lost their heads though, and their first yellow was not long in coming. Using the advantage well, Moderns took a quick tap penalty and Carroll showed why we keep dragging him out of the warden assisted living community every week, throwing an outrageous dummy and ghosting a line through scrambling cover defence to cross under the posts, wrapping up the bonus point in the process. Hughes converted.
The game degenerated into a bit of a brawl at this point. Well to be fair, it was a one sided brawl, as Moderns were happy to take the knocks all the while smiling and pointing to the scoreboard, which for some strange reason only seemed to infuriate the opposition more... The ref however had soon had enough, and the red card was seen in a Moderns match for the first time since Holmesy got a red coloured yellow card at Loughborough. We were later informed, perhaps unsurprisingly that this was by no means the first red card that had been dispensed to Jimmies this year.
This seemed to do little to deter Jimmies from their ‘game plan’ though, and another penalty conceded 45 yards out allowed Hughes to slot a huge effort over and conclude the scoring for the day. All that was left was a further yellow card before the game was drawn to a close, meaning Moderns last 4 games read played 4, won 4, points for 208, points against 66 with 4 Try bonus points thrown in for good measure – not a bad month! Discussions continue with the RFU around playing all our games in April next season…
I am no tabloid headline writer, but perhaps a good one would have read:
Jimmies Go For Knockout Blow But Moderns Win On Points
(Groan away, but I had to crowbar it in!)
Man of the match this week was given to all 18 players, who played all the rugby, and took their knocks in exactly the right way – by playing more rugby!
Dick of the day this week does however go to Harry Alexander. Taking a week off from instructing at the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School in Miramar to run out at openside, he came off the pitch and apparently through a time portal back to primary school, complaining that ‘one of their big boys punched me in the face’! Diddums….! |