The streak continues, not the win / loss streak, but the streak where we play under ideal weather conditions for the 1st leg of the Home&Home for the Narod Cup. Under sunny skies, the SOB’s arrived with about 17 players and we had close to 28. Being a bit short, we loaned Evan and Dirk for the whole game and Dave Irving for half the game. Jamie L. exchanged his Twilighter jersey for the referee’s colours as no referee showed up. We knew this was going to be a challenging game as the SOB’s are always prepared and very experienced. They had a few red shorts and one yellow shorts. We had Lauren and Dave I. in red and Jack in purple.
The SOB’s kicked off to us and within the first minute, Luke scored from 50 metres out, but he had to zig zag 70 metres to do it. Alas, this was not a sign of things to come. The SOB’s quickly recovered and scored their first try off a line out. Moments later, their speedy back broke through our line and scored their second try from 40 metres away. After some back and forth, we managed to put 8 plays together which ended with Anthony scoring from 8 metres out. This made it 2-2 at the end of the first quarter.
The SOB’s are a very crafty and experienced side and made very few mistakes. However, we were very fortunate when Luke popped the ball with his foot in a mad scramble, was able to secure it on one bounce and out ran their fullback into the endzone for his second try. Deryck finished the scoring in the second quarter with his first try as a Twit after receiving the ball from newcomer, Jacky aka JK. During his 80 metre run, Deryck must have been thinking what it would be like to shoot the boot. I am sure he would find this out during our hosting. The second quarter ended 4-2 for the home team.
We started the third quarter quickly with Luke scoring his third and fourth try in rapid succession. Instead of folding, the SOB’s never gave up as they answered with another try of their own. They also demonstrated their superb tackling ability by taking down our mountain man Eric M., not once but twice when he carried the ball for a few metres. Eric showed his fortitude by bouncing up after each hit as if they were nothing. (They did knock him back 2 m each time.) Rick finished the third quarter by scoring a try from 50 m out. This made the score 7-3.
The beginning of the fourth quarter saw the SOB’s control the play in our end. Then from a line out they were able to put several phases together and scored their fourth try. We finally broke the game open when Luke, once again, carried the ball 30 m toward their end zone and then passed the ball to Preston for his first try of the game. Jacques scored his first try in a similar fashion near the end of the game. He was the recipient of a pass from JK. The final score: 9-4. The score was not indicative of how tight the game was.
Coach Read had to rest his voice after all that vociferous coaching, but he did congratulate the team for a fine performance. The winner of the best and fairest in an U17’s Schoolboy League many years ago, Luke, was named MOM by both the Twits and SOB’s. Other Twits that had solid games were Falkey, Ted, Doug, Ben, Anthony, Evan and Dirk. (Even though Evan and Dirk played for the other team.)
It was a solid team effort against a very determined and experienced SOB team.
Twits Iron Chef Dave and his crew of Lolly, Irish, Deryck, Fred, Dirk, and Jacques prepared the cottage pie/salad and Chocolate cookie for the post-match meal.
