Following a mid season break of 8 weeks the 2nd team returned with a hard fought welcome win at home toSouthwell 2s. The cobwebs were blown away with a force 10 gale blowing across the pitch which almost caused Will Mckegney to be knocked over when one of his conversion attempts came back at him in the first half.
A rousing speech by braveheart with less swear words than last time got everyone ready for kick off.
We started well with some good ground made by the forwards and the battering rams of the centres (Rollings and Bevis). This led to a number of early penalties due toSouthwell been unable to cope with our speed and quickness at the breakdown. One of these many penalties was taken by the quiet and reserved Feasey who spotted a gap before popping to Finny for an easy try. The conversion was missed as described earlier.
Southwell replied with some good play dominated by their forwards and our inability to tackle around the legs. We conceded two penalties within kicking range and they managed to score one of them. We replied very quickly withsome more good play but the handling skills started to let us down as we created good chances for the backs. We did score a second try with another quick tap penalty by Feaseywho made it all the way this time without a finger been laid on him to score the second try under the posts. The conversion was easily slotted over.
We scored a penalty with 5 minutes of the half to go before the Southwell backlash began. They camped on our try line for the remainder of the half desperately looking to score a try. Our defence held out with some fantastic tackling andrucking within 5 metres of our try line.
The half time talk consisted of trying to play simple rugby and use the conditions to our advantage. Little did we know that we had finished our scoring for the afternoon.
The second half was much the same as the first with both teams trying to play rugby but struggling with the wind.Unfortunately we seemed to have stayed in our half time team talk for too long and they scored within minutes of the restarts.
We did create a few chances in the second half. Most notably a chance for Bevis who with the try line calling decided to pass to Finny. The referee decided it was a forward pass. The other good chance was nearly taken by Keith (I swapped hands with Peasey for the day) Farr who ran around their winger from inside our 22 before been tackled just short of the try line. Unfortunately the Southwell backs killed the ball to stop us from scoring a decisive try.
So we began the second half of the season with a win and have plenty to play for with a cup semi final to come and a good position in the league to go and challenge for the title.
Man of the Match – Armstrong Holmes for his great work at the back of the scrum, strong tackling and runs. Also he had to listen to Feasey all day.
Dick of the day – JP for his inability to score a try when it was harder not to score and for been unable to sell raffle tickets after the game. |