Cup semi-final
Kelly's heroes know who they are!
There are not many games when despite all the good play, one incident dominates the game: Forget the top tackling, the kick chasing or the occasional breaks it all apparently came down to that call, and even with hindsight I'd make the same call again.
Opting to have the wind and slight slope in the first half the plan was simple: Kick to the corners, win our set play attack from inside their 22. However in horrible conditions we too often decided to stick it up our jumpers or try and throw it wide but the problem was, it was working. The gain line was being broke, searing breaks were being made, but in the conditions the ball kept being turned over but we were dominating. Penalty 1, through the posts, 3-0 then it happened. They were tackled into touch, but on the other side of the pitch then had a player down, their coach and physio were on the pitch, and several of their players were stood their too all shouting to the referee that a player was down. I too shouted to the ref that a player was down when Rich B, oblivious to the male on the floor received a quick throw in, chased his own kick and touched down in the corner.
Knowing I may be hated for it, I asked the referee if he heard the shout for player down and he hadn't, and he confirmed if he had he wouldn't have allowed the restart, so I offered to take play back and have the throw-in again ignoring the score.
The game restarted, we carried on from where we'd left off and attack after attack resulted in penalty 2, again straight through the posts. Then disaster struck, a knock on in our 22 giving them, a scrum and now it was our turn to defend but defend we did until Rich B found himself at the bottom of a ruck being bitten and gouged by two Sherborne players: As myself and several others got them off play continued, and with 5 of our players involved in breaking it up to their 2, their scrum half got the ball and ran in under the posts as the half came to a close: Conversion added, halftime 6-7.
Playing the game plan we had intended to use, Sherborne kicked us to death in the second half, and anytime we worked the ball into their half we soon found ourselves back on our own try line. Attack as they did we defended like our lives depended on it and they never crossed the white again, kicking the only penalty we gave away to mean with time running out we now needed a try rather then one kickable penalty and in electing to try and force the game we just created more pressure on ourselves and the game ended with us camped defending our try line.
Big thank you to everyone, those who started, subbed and came on, subbed and didn't come on or just came to support.
Man of the match was Alex Duncan, and I'll leave you all to guess who was dick of the day!
