24 Veterans answered the call to muster in Larkhill and take on the Gunners yesterday, the vets manager was still upset following the narrow defeat against the Sappers. Clearly still miffed about having to change in the store shed, Ollie was stomping about the changing room demanding players get focused and ready for his training run out!!!!!!!!! What’s happened to a cup of tea and a catch up with old mates before trundling out onto the pitch????
Anyway, the vets grumbled their way through the 30 minute warm up with many demonstrating the fact that they do actually still have hamstrings!
With the starting 15 named and the bench shuffling off to get out of the rain, the game kicked off. The Vets started at a rapid rate of knots with the forwards rampaging, the Gunners were shell shocked as Si Townsend burst into the 22 and barrelled his way over the line for the first try inside 5 minutes. Despite having practised his kicking for nearly an hour before the game, John Armour missed the conversion.
From the re-start Col Ed caught the ball and popped it to a static Mark Stuart who was mashed by the Gunners back row; despite being floored he managed to scoop the ball back to Pricey at 9, his quick pass released Freddie who danced his way through some weak defending, injected the after burners and screeched under the posts. Clearly the practise worked as Armour converted 12 – 0.
With the forwards dominating and the silky hands of little Craig at 10, deputising for the legend (once again not let out to play!!) the Vets continued to push hard at the Gunners line, quick ball from a ruck saw a clear overlap on the left, Col Ed sold a superb dummy to the Gunners defence and as the Red Sea parted he dived over the line to score the Vets 3rd try and with only 20 minutes gone, try converted 19-0.
Unfortunately that’s really where the game finished for the Vets!!
The Gunners started to inject their bench (all 15 of them), with the next surge into the RLC half the Gunners moved the ball well, supported ably by the Ref and his decision making, they were able to push the RLC back onto their own line, it was only a matter of time before the Gunners scored in the corner, try followed try followed try and as quick as the RLC had been 19 points up they were trailing by 20 – 19. Despite efforts to stem the flow of tries the RLC had their backs to the wall. Darren Price was crushed in his attempts to tackle the biggest F1J1 I have ever seen, he made Jo Kava look tiny. The Gunners turned around at half time leading 27-19.
The RLC made a couple of changes at the half time break and at the first scrummage the injection seemed to have worked as the Gunners scrum was nudged back and the RLC were able to move the ball again, Dan Ratu stepped into 10 and began to weave his magic, unfortunately he ran straight into the brick wall of the Gunners defence, the ball was turned over and one of the youngest Vets ever seen picked up the ball and with his own impression of Usain Bolt, burst through the RLC defence and ran in the try from his own half. With their tails up the Gunners continued to press for more tries, clearly they want to avenge last years defeat. The most outrageous reverse pass from the Gunners 10 created open field for their winger to add yet another try in the corner.
The ref gave Si Townsend the opportunity to take a 10 minute rest, stating the pace of the game had become too much for him as he’d taken to lying on the ruck and not moving away, not happy with this Si discussed the option with every player on his way to the side line. Down to 14, the RLC rallied and put the Gunners on the defence and with some quick hands Jenks dived over to score - an element of decency to the score.
The Gunners added 2 further tries before the final whistle, final score RLC 24 vs RA 47.
Not mentioned in this report was Mac McKervail's excellent box kick under his own posts that went 25m up, 25m to the right and back 3m putting the RLC under yet more pressure on our own line – OK it end up in a penalty for the RLC, but props kicking!!
The next Vets game is against the REME in Abingdon on Wed 29 Feb 12. As ever it is important to beat the REME and to that end Ollie will be pleading for support in the coming weeks, no doubt we will be subjected to another savage warm up and pre match training session – wasn’t like that when Hammy ran the Vets!!
To all those on the distribution please pencil the 29th as a day to dust down your boots and come down for a run out, if you know any more lads who are entering the twilight of their playing years then bring them along or at least pass their details to Ollie. |
