Sun 19 Sep 2021, 10:00
The second game of the season saw us travel the short distance to Southwell - always a feisty fixture.
With last weeks match ending like an episode of Mash (one for the oldies), we were carrying a few injuries and from a squad of 26, 16 mustered for roll call. This soon went to 15 after Freddie, who’d swallowed half the Trent whilst kayaking yesterday, disappeared to the toilet during the warm up, never to be seen again. Fair play to him for turning up in the first place even though he knew there was ‘trouble below decks’.
So the 15 remaining brave souls were getting a full game, like it or not, with not even death being an acceptable reason to leave the field of play.
As usual the warm up was….well lukewarm, but once the game started we began to slowly perk up. It was evident that a few of the Southwell lads were friends with the local butcher and their game plan was to pummel us into submission.
On the whole we dealt with this well, with all 15 standing up to the battering and our defence held. At the end of the first quarter we were only 3-0 down having conceded a penalty.
The second period saw us go on the offensive more and start to impose our game on them. Dogged defence and harassing line speed saw us pressure them into making errors and from a Southwell line out near their goal line we got our first score when Konrad was the first to react to drop on a fumbled ball, with Oliver converting, 3-7.
There was more to come when Noah reacted to a quickly taken tap penalty to slide in at the corner and it was 3-12 at the half way point.
Early on in the 3rd period Southwell got a second penalty to make it 6-12, before Archie bulldozed over after breaking away from a driving maul to but us back in the ascendancy, with Oliver again converting for 6-19.
However, the last act of the quarter saw Southwell finally breach our defence after a series of pick and goes for 13-19.
The last quarter saw us absorb a lot of pressure but Southwell did manage to score again after scrappy play from both sides. Inexplicably (and luckily for us) their kicker missed the conversion, which was probably the easiest kick he had on the day: 18-19. Time was called with us camped on their try line trying to put the game to bed.
Kudos should be given to Eddie and Will, who despite being out injured, turned up to support their teammates.So, plenty to work on but a great performance from all the lads, 1 to 15 and this win should give them confidence that they can deal with big sides if they commit to the cause.
Roll on next week.
Mick
