Match Report - Savers Juniors / Forest Opens JV - thanks Jason Woolford and Linda Curnow
We finally had our first competition game for the new JV opens team between Forest, Manly Savers and Wakehurst after a forfeit from Newport in round 1. We travelled up to Wahroonga to play the Gordon Barbarians on a beautiful sunny Mother’s Day and the boys didn’t disappoint their mums.
Who said running rugby was dead, the game was played end to end without much defence in the middle. It wasn’t a good start with 12 players unavailable (6 Flu, 3 Covid and 3 injured) however, it was good to play players out of position. As stated earlier, not much defence, and the team that could hold the ball often produced the goodies. The game ebbed and flowed with both teams scoring and with 20 to go, we scored to take the lead 31:22.
I finally thought we were on top, no, I would be mistaken and not for the first time in the game. For the next 15 minutes we didn’t touch the ball and Gordon ran in 3 tries and lead 41:31 with 5 to go, I thought we were gone, mistake number 2.
To the players credit they didn’t drop their heads, we turned the ball over on our 22 and Zac Flynn opened up the after burners and was beating players left, right and centre and looked for all money to be heading for the try line, only to be denied by the touchie’s flag back on our 22. We won the ensuing line out and marched the ball up the field to score under the posts with 1 minute on the clock, but wait, Gordon were blowing up, they thought we knocked on, the ref had to confirm with the touchie, TRY, TRY, TRY, down 41:38 with no time left on the clock, however the ref knew the laws of the game and Gordon had to restart.
I was thinking we had a chance here, I barked to our players that it was the last play and keep the ball in play, no pressure. What happen next was amazing to watch, we must have had 7, 8, 9 phases (too many to count), support was coming from everywhere (better late than never), cleaning out, pops off the ground, offloads in contact, players running onto the ball (champagne rugby) and did I mention support. We were in their 22 in attack, Jack saw an opening in the back line and backed himself, with a big right foot step, he sliced through their defence to score under the posts. What a WIN, 45:41, what an exciting last few minutes of Rugby and what a great example of never giving up, no matter what you are up against. Our first win for the season.
Great game boys!