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Year 8 Friday 18 August
Scotch 27 Guildford 17
Taking the field for the final game with reserved confidence, Scotch chose to run 'up the hill' into a fresh breeze in the first half. Confidence was evidenced by a series of pick and drive moves in attack by the forwards and was soon rewarded by another typical barge over for first try to Oli Hoskins.
Despite some accuracy difficulties from the wind in lineouts, Scotch also dominated in set play. The front row of Pat Schofield, Ruppert Carr and Fraser McKee controlled all scrums and caused the referee to apply that unfortunately weak law of uncontested scrums. This dominance was exceptionally pleasing as Scotch had three props out for the day with injury.
Guildford's forwards lifted their rucking and mauling aggression and presented their backs with good attacking opportunities only to be thwarted by strong defence by the loose forwards Taylor McPherson and Matt Beaver, and Rory Edwards and Pat Bolton in the centres. Despite gaining less of the ball from broken play, the possession Scotch did have was used effectively by some good support running by our big forwards Sam Christensen, Matt Beaver, Oli, and in particular Andrew Moore who attacked and supported all day, deserving the three try haul he achieved.
The second half was played with Scotch extending their confidence with the wind, the hill, and some good attacking confidence all in their favour. This confidence did bring out some of the old bad play of the team with frequently missed soft tackles allowing Guildford to mount a number of dangerous attacking moves, in particular by their Number 8 who individually ran in three tries in the second half.
However this was more than compensated by some very mature attacking support play by Scotch backs and forwards. Individually Matt Wesson and Toby Goyder-Ewan showed great running and defensive skills, Matt Beaver demonstrated surprising strength and speed to run in a sixty meter try, and Xavier Butler, coming on at wing in the last ten minutes, showed the potential skills he has in just failing to pick up a wide attacking kick by Tim Ingles to miss a certain try, and soon after stepping over the dead ball line to miss another certain try Scotch College Rugby Union Messenger, Issue #12 Page 8 of 11 after a good run.
But it was the team’s maturity which was most pleasing and despite some remaining defence lapses, the boys have shown they have progressed well to put together good tight and open attacking moves in support of each other. This was a great win largely from the potential evidenced by the whole team.
Mr Michael Beaver
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Self praise is no recomendation...
