Match Report vs Hamilton Boys’ High School
Photos - 1st XV vs Hamilton BHS
The 1stXV travelled to Hamilton to take on the perennially strong Hamilton Boys’ High School 1stXV. Runners up in last year's national championships, Hamilton are always an extremely tough proposition, especially on their home track.
The game started exceptionally well with our attack getting into stride early and good edge play putting Korie Winters away down the sideline. He scored a well taken winger's try following a chip and chase and two minutes into the game we were up 7-0. Hamilton then got into their work and do what they do well – look after the ball for extended periods of time. Our defence, a hallmark of our campaign to date stood up once again however and we were able to fluster the home team into uncharacteristic mistakes. The weight of possession soon told and after 10 minutes of wave after wave, they crossed the chalk to score their first try. During this time we were reduced to 14 men with a soft yellow card and Hamilton were able to score a second quick try through a missed tackle and, in the blink of an eye, they were 14-7 up. We were able to get some possession for a five minute period after this and scored a try of our own to level it up at 14 apiece. Another cluster of missed tackles resulted in another soft try to Hamilton to put them in front and then, on the stroke of halftime, we converted possession into points and narrowed the score to 21-17 at halftime.
The feeling at halftime was that despite the possession heavily favouring the home side, they weren’t breaking us and it was mistakes were allowing Hamilton to score. Fix the mistakes up, back our defence and be clinical when we get the ball and we were confident we could get a positive result.
The second half was a repeat of the first in that Hamilton enjoyed a glut of possession, but our defense was superb and held them out for 25 minutes. We finally got into the opposition half and scored a penalty to tighten the score line up. Then we swept back in again with another superb try to gain the lead 25 – 21 with 7 minutes remaining. We controlled the next four minutes well, but couldn’t exit our half. Hamilton had one more crack at our line and two minutes from time, scored the go ahead try. A melee in the process of scoring resulted in one of their players being put in the sin bin. We had one more opportunity to score the necessary points but, unfortunately, were unable to execute and so for a second week in a row lost a game we had a chance to win.
Hamilton are a championship winning team who have a certain style of play that forces teams to defend for long periods of time and make the most of few opportunities. For most of the game we did exactly that. We earned six opportunities to score and converted five of them. Unfortunately, we didn’t control enough of the key moments and gave the opposition two easy looks and they were good enough to take them. It should be noted though that this group of mates are wearing their jersey with passion and putting in performances that they and their families can be proud of.
Points Scorers:
Tries: Korie Winters
Ruben Love
Tamati Ruawai
Penalties: Stewart Cruden x 2
Conversions: Stewart Cruden x 2
