Sunshine Rugby

Sunday morning is exactly as I remembered it. I'm sore from head to toe but pretty happy that we won!

The weather was outstanding for our game yesterday. I had to cover up with Factor30, it was so sunny. As predicted they lined out with a team of big leaguies and tryed to run from everywhere.

The game started pretty evenly and a lot of the game was played in the middle third. They hit their straps a little before us and we had to weather some serious pressure from their backs for most of the first half. Luckily they were pretty indisciplined at the breakdown and they wasted some good opportunities.

We were not making life easy for ourselves either. Loose scrummaging and some untidy forward play characterised the first half andit put us under a lot of pressure.

It all changed on the stroke of half time. Their No. 4 had been getting a bit fiesty during the breakdowns and I got in his ear a bit whenever possible. It all come to a head when he swung for Carlos (probably the smallest man on the park) right in front of the ref. There was no messing about, he went straight for 10 minutes sinbinning. Polish duly dispatched the resulting penalty and we went into the break with a 3 point lead we probably didn't deserve.

At the break we just spoke about calming things down and remembering to play to our patterns.
We had the kick to start the second half and we went striaght down the field and Cluffy sliced them open without so much as a hand waved at him. 8-0 with 9 minutes sinbin time left. They restarted again and this time it was the forwards turn to show their worth, we set one ruck, I had a pick and drive and stayed on my feet to set a maul. Hoggy was on me like lightening to secure the ball and we went straight up the middle. The ball went left and we set again. This time Rocky was on hand to touchdown.

The rest of the game kinda degenerated after that. There was loads of loose ball and knock-ons so the game never retrieved the flow. Still our scrum was creaking but we secured our own ball and pressurised them whenever possible.

They ran in for a soft try later on in the second half, they cut back in from 1st centre for probably the first time in the game and ran in under the posts. Disappointing but not too disastrerous.

Cluffy was deservedly man of the match. He kicked well from hand, scored a good try and put in some massive defence.

For myself, I was pretty disappointed with my performance, I missed some first-ups and scrumaged poorly but I got around the park a bit and got a few chances to run the ball. Hopefully the fitness will come sooner rather than later.