The final score on Saturday was 32-59. The match report, this time brought to you by Pete Guest, goes a little bit like this:
Despite going behind early on, the Occies took a rare but deserved victory away to Cranleigh. Delayed by traffic and fielding a depleted pack, we piled on the pressure from the kick off, but somehow managed to let Cranleigh slip in two tries on the break, with only some inept kicking from their 10 keeping us in sight. Ali’s boot, a high take from the kick off and an Ish shimmy put us back in touch. Cranleigh started to crumble and Media ran in a couple straight after the restart, as the opposition started to lose players through injury. A straight red for their second row for a blatant punch in front of the ref with 5 minutes to go looked like the end of their match, but they briefly rallied and the ref found another 10 minutes on his stopwatch, which just gave us time to put a couple more names on the scoresheet.
Peter Guest
Man of the match was a difficult choice with so many playing well. Mike Harris played exceptionally well considering he had had a chest infection all week. I remember him flattening one of their second rows with a ‘sit down and dont’ get up tackle’. Shane (a.k.a. Mini Wayne) and Nick Corcoran bravely entered the front row with what must have been the fastest front row ever to have been fielded and it showed with the energy of their breaks and tackles. Unfortunately Nick has suffered from a fractured eye socket and will be out for a few weeks so let’s all hope he recovers quickly. Rob Brooks and Rob Condon had solid games in the engine room, although Rob C doesn’t remember making a tackle in the game. The back row were excellent. Damo, particularly from kick offs, was always a threat. Nick Conners was destructive at 8 and guided the pack both with his quick breaks, tackling and talk. Pete Guest played like a man possessed by the devil himself. The oppo most have been sick of the sight of him by the end of the game.
Debutant, Tom Lindley, played a ‘Dawson-like’ game at 9 with some great cover tackling, endless energy and a penchant for quick penalties. In the other backs, John Parker was unstoppable as ever. Andy Davey covered both wings well and still had time to link up with his older bro, Jonothon Davey in attack. Aidan played the first half before taking a big blow to the ribs. Thankfully, this did not hinder Aiden’s performance on the dancefloor later that evening. The Man of the Match was a toss up between Jonothon Davey and Alli. Jonathon Davey put in some crushing tackles and cut the oppo open at ease with his bucaneering runs. His prediction of ‘No. 13 is going to wake up on Sunday morning and seriously consider giving up Rugby’ may have just been proven correct. Alli, however, pipped Jon to the post with a fantastic game at 12 and then 15. His kicking was as assured as I have seen at this club and he also managed to score his first try for the club with his own little chip and chase.
Dick of the Day me for getting over the try line 3 times and only scoring once. Nuff’ said.