Coulda, woulda, shoulda

Foolishly I volunteered to write the match report this week as Dave Love was in Devon (cheers Si! Dave). It seemed a good idea at the time but after the 6 or 7 pints following the match my memory has gone a bit hazy so apologies if I miss anything.

When writing up this report I don’t think I can sum up the match better than Daz did after the final whistle, once again it took 50 minutes for the team to wake up, once we did we played some good rugby and were rewarded with 2 tries in the second half.

When we arrived at Old Tiffinians on a freezing cold, miserable day, the pitch started of as a wet, soft, muddy ground and by full time looked like a ploughed field so it was evident from the start that the match would be won by the forwards. This looked to be in our favour as with the first scrum of the day after a poor kick off our pack smashed the opposition followed up with some very tight phase play it looked like it could be a very good day for us. Old Tiffinians however had other plans and started using some very clever tactics, by not putting any pressure against us in the scrums the ref constantly pinged our forwards for pushing early thus negating a big strength for us.

Old Tiffs camped in our half for a long period of time but some good defence from quins held them a long way from the try line until finally we were penalised at a breakdown and they slotted the kick from the 22 to lead 3-0. Quins should some good resilience and a great break down the wing from Matt Kew saw us get into their 22, unfortunately after a great break from Matt Kew he then flew in to clear a ruck but managed to smash into Josh Carter’s head forcing him to leave the field with a concussion, which we all hope he recovers from soon.

For the second week running the match saw multiple cards. First sin bin was after a tip tackle from Jake Lovelock saw his brother Mike get 10 mins in the bin. Not sure if it was a case of mistaken identity by the ref or Mike had done something in the following bust up. About 3 minutes after that the Old Tiffs loose head was sin binned for stamping and kicking after these incidents the game became a lot better natured.

After some more sustained territory Old Tiffs crossed our line only to be held up by Alex Mercer an outstanding defensive effort. Unfortunately the went over not too long after that with a forward drive. Not too long after that they were back in our half, after a bone crunching tackle on out 5m line I had to go off with a stinger injury in my shoulder so didn’t actually see their second try so if anyone can enlighten me I would appreciate it. In the second half as Daz said we woke up, the forwards started to get on top in the scrums again by feeding the ball as soon as we set. Along with some great breaks from Alex Mercer, Sam Rickman and Jake Lovelock. One of which you could tell the Jake was a flanker and centre as after making a clean break creating a 3 on 1 on the right hand side he got confused and turned left to make a bee line for the nearest defender.

It was our turn to put the pressure on the try line and after some great forward play driving us to the very edge of the line Alex Mercer looked right to see an overlap and set off right only on close inspection saw a prop outside him and so dived for the line himself just beating a powerful tackle to get the try, which he converted himself. Not long after we were back on the 5m line courtesy of a break and then some more good forward pick and drives. This time the ball went left through the hands with some excellent quick hands from Si Morgan to send us over again in the far corner which unfortunately wasn’t converted ( I couldn’t see who scored as I was on the other wing at the time,)

Old Tiffs followed this up with a successful penalty kick to make the score 18-12. But more pressure from quins saw us have huge territorial gains, with Old Tiffs with the put in on their own 5m line they bravely went for an 8-9 pick up which Mike Lovelock anticipated only to knock on the attempted intercept over the try line. The score didn’t move from there, and finished 18-12 to Old Tiffs. It was a game that could have been won but was enjoyed by everybody on the pitch.