1st XV v Francis Douglas Memorial College Match Report
The 1st XV travelled to New Plymouth to play Francis Douglas Memorial College in the first white jersey game of the year. With the funeral of Mr Crosswell on Tuesday, the team made the decision to travel on game day which made for a very early start and a long day.
The game started positively enough with some excellent forays through the heart of the host’s defence. The support play was pleasing and allowed us to move up the field into the attacking 22. This resulted in a try being scored in the opening five minutes and chances to score another soon after. The productive start perhaps lulled the team into a false sense of security as we became guilty of loose carries and poor handling. This allowed the opposition back into the game and they started to accumulate points through our errors. Two tries and a penalty later we went from being in the ascendency to chasing the game at 15-5 down. Towards the end of the half, we managed to get some ball control back and scored a late try to make it 15-10 at the halftime break and turning into the freshening the wind.
The second half didn’t start well with scoreboard pressure leading to a tightening up of our playing style. This played into FDMC’s hands with them pinning us in our half. Our defence was keeping us in the game at this stage and we were scrambling well. The opposition were pinning us in our half with excellent kicks and the territorial pressure told with another try being scored. With 15 minutes to go it was 22-10. We finally kicked into gear in the final stanza of the game as we were stung into action. Our running game started to stress the opposition with Michael Halatuituia in particular starting to make yards on the fringes. Our scrum also started to gain some ascendency and this led to a more consistent supply of the ball. Two quick tries were scored to make it 22-20 with 5 minutes to go. The discipline of FDMC was waning as the pressure increased and the referee sent two to the bin leaving us playing against 13 men. While we made hard work of it, we kept attacking and managed to score the match winning try with time up on the clock.
Given all that had happened in the last 24 hours, this was a victory based less on quality and more on a never say die attitude – just as Mr Crosswell would have demanded.
Points Scorers:
Tries
James Woodmass x 2
Ruben Love x 2
James Stratton