1st XV v St Pat's Silverstream
Wednesday 27 June 2018
The 1st XV played the impressive St Pat's Silverstream on the Number one. The opposition have been enjoying a fairly stellar season in the Wellington competition and this was an eagerly anticipated traditional fixture for us as we looked to put in a good display in front of our home crowd.
The game started poorly with 2 tries being scored in the first five minutes through a combination of missed tackles and poor alignment. We then scored a try of our own with Stewart Cruden getting over after some good play from the forwards. The next twenty minutes was a fairly dour struggle with Stream enjoying the wealth of possession and territory as we struggled to get out of our own half. The Stream runners kept coming in waves and it was to our defensive credit that they didn’t score points. While our lineout was operating superbly and we were getting our fair share of their ball, because of where we were in the field, we were simply unable to launch any attacks. The opposition crossed for another try late in the half to extend their lead out to 17-7.
The half-time talk centred on the need to lift our energy on attack. We were confident we were going to get opportunities and we needed to execute accurately when the pictures were good to go.
The possession evened up significantly in the second half as we attempted to play catch up rugby. Our lineout again was a secure source of ball, allowing us to gain parity with ball in hand. We showed courage in attacking from our own tryline at times, but again our execution was laboured once we breached and would inevitably turn it over. We earned overlaps and mismatches through our play, but again at crucial times we failed to make that last pass to put players in space away. Defensively we were very good and it wasn’t until the last couple of minutes that Stream crossed the tryline again. The final score was a 25-7 loss, with St Pat's Silverstream retaining the Wallace Cup.
This was a game where defensively and at set piece we were very good. However, we lacked our normal energy and accuracy on attack and this meant we were always chasing the game.
This was Stewart Cruden’s 50th start for the 1st XV – a tremendous effort and testament to his professionalism in his physical preparation.
Points Scorers:
Try: Stewart Cruden
Conversion: Stewart Cruden
