Single boys run out winners over Married men

2/11/2013

“The weekend after the weekend before,” so to speak, and notwithstanding the best efforts of several players, and despite 28 players confirming that they would be on the day, only 19 players took to the field for the internal match, Married v Single.

There was a combined 20 minute training session / warm up before the sides spit off into their respective camps to fine tune their positional line-ups, talk tactics and practice their lineout and backs moves. It was evident that the Married men would have the lions share of the experience, whist the Single boys had youthful exuberance and enthusiasm on their side. A reduced size pitch was marked out, and with Erik Knight on the whistle the match was ready to kick-off.

Despite the numbers, there was a reasonable amount of structure to the match, both sides fielding six forwards and three or four backs. With the narrower pitch, and no-one out wide to pass too, the game tended to be a forward struggle, interspersed with the intrusion from the odd back. There was plenty of contact with rucks and mauls aplenty, but also some clever off-loads out of contact – and some not so clever! Competition around the breakdown was fierce too, with some good clean-outs on occasion, and equally some good turnovers.

Match practice, and match fitness was evidently lacking on both sides, naturally enough with so little rugby having been played by this group of players, but what there was appeared to favour the Single boys. And it proved to be the deciding factor in the end, as the Married men’s steam ran out in the short second half.

The Single boys scored six tries through Craig Rendall (2), Kyle Robb (2), Ross Howe and Sean Wood. Lee Thomson crossed for the Married men’s solitary try.

Single: Uvis Gurauskis, Tim Libicki, Martin Harper, Kyle Robb, Craig Rendall, Sean Wood, Michael Allan, Derek Nicolson, Ross Howe, Mathew Lynch

Married: Phil Evans, Lee Thomson, Roy Temple, Trevor Spence, Billy Elliot, Kenneth Kent, Stewart Rendall, Scott Cooper, Kevin Pepper

Next week sees Office workers v Manual workers, KO 12pm at Pickaquoy. Surely with no First XV match full sides can be achieved………????