Slaying the tiger

Yesterday Sai Kung Stingrays under 13s first team played DEA Tigers.  Aiden was picked as inside centre. For some reason its a bit of a grudge match - possibly because the teams are pretty well matched historically.  Certainly I make a point of showing up ready to run a bit of mouth in the direction of their highly vocal parents ;-).

Most teams have a long warm up practice before a game.  Consequently, if you are a spectator you can see what's coming - and it looked pretty ugly because they had four really big guys - like six foot big guys - and I was watching them smash into the tackle bags and thinking aaiyaaa.  And aaiyaa it turned out to be.

Jules half way through getting smashed - size differential evident as he is crumpled. And definitely high.

The Stingrays spent the entire first half defending between their 22 and their try-line, as the monsters ran at them.  There was no getting the ball back either - their scrum must have weighed 50% more at least, so every time anyone on the pitch knocked on or pushed a pass forward, they'd get the ball back when their scrum destroyed ours - and I mean absolutely destroyed.  Line-outs were better, because although they had a height advantage their hooker was not exactly hitting the William Tell apple - and of course - big fellas are hard to lift.

Nello in the thick of it.  High?!  Neck roll?! WTF!! Where's the ref?

Anyway, towards the end of the first half the defenses eventually buckled, and the black and yellow hordes poured in.  The Stingrays trudged back to the kickoff, looking pretty tatty and down at the mouth, and a minute later one of their Billy Bulldozers had the ball again, and it was back into the 22 for more crunch and stomp.  I was regretting not having headphones to block out the b.s. blood-baying coming from their stands, and it was looking like a long and unpleasant afternoon.  But then, with about a minute left on the clock, Nello playing flyhalf managed to get his hands on the ball, and cleared it down-field with a long and lucky-bouncing kick.  After a bit of a scrap, Stingrays got a scrum, and managed to get the ball out of it while it was being driven back at pace, the scrumhalf drew a couple of players before being monstered, but got a sneaky pass off, and Nello cut back brilliantly to score under the posts.  Max then converted (they had missed theirs earlier) and bizarrely the first half ended 7-5 to the Stingrays.  It was GREAT, and I'm sure there were a few DEA parents looking for headphones of their own.

Nello again, getting toasted by a prop. And one shoulder fraction from high again.

The second half was more of the same - big boys running at them, and eventually scoring and converting - but also starting to get tired - and slowly but surely the tide started to shift as the beef ran out of puff, leaving their light-weights to do the work.  It's the problem of having a few Jonah Lomus - you'd be a twit not to build a game plan around them - but when, for whatever reason, that stops working, you can be well shy a plan B.

Game starting to open up, Aiden distributing (Nello, as usual, dusting himself off on the ground from contact)
- and big boys in the background running out of puff.

The Stingrays might on balance have been smaller - but they are fit and well drilled.  The game went back and forth, both sides coming close on occasion.  Then with about 10 minutes to go, the ball came from Nello to Aiden, who made a great break through their line, drawing  a number of players, and then passing to the absolutely flying speedster and tackle-king Nick Toller on his outside.  There was no way that their fullback could turn and accelerate fast enough, and Nick crossed the line with a couple of Tigers snapping ineffectually at his heels.  Have a finger.  And converted.

Ball in the midfield from Nello...

...and head down and go for the gap, getting the fend ready...

... no need, but now watch the centre on the outside...

... hurdle the ankle-tap, going flatout...

... get your Campese out - ball in both hands, flying past the midfield...

... draw and pass to Nick...

... who is straight past the fullback without a touch, and with far too much gas, goodbye.

Some more back and forth followed, then 3 minutes of brutal every-man-in defending, and have a nice day Tigers.  It was pretty cool.  The real heroes of the day, it needs to be said, were the forwards and loosies who got smashed and stomped on and beaten and bullied for the vast majority of the 60 minutes, but somehow prevailed.  Jake Brunner - featured in the pics with Arki a few posts back - was an absolute demon.  He's not yet a big kid, but he's hyper-fit, competitive, and utterly fearless.  Add to which getting a bit grumpy about the way things are going, and he becomes a complete handful for everyone on the opposing team (and indeed the ref).  Nello was superb, tackled way above his weight, got smashed repeatedly but kept going, and ran the team like an absolute champ.  There are many here not mentioned, kids that you won't know (Finn Bennett, Jake Cornelius, and others) who equally excelled in their individual games; but all in all it was the great team performance that counted - weathering the onslaught, thinking, co-operating and prevailing.  Schoolboy rugby at its best.