St. Faiths vs. Norwich

When we arrived at Norwich, we saw our opponents warming up. Some players on our team thought they looked horrible. Then Jo Whitelock, the other second rower, said, " Remember our match against Wellingborough. We thought they were bad, and then they creamed us." He was referring to an earlier match we played against a school called Wellingborough in the Midlands. After that we forgot about it entirely.

The match started out favoring Norwich in the first minute or so. But then we held them at about midfield for 15 minutes until their inside center dodged our back line and sprinted down for the try. Then it was halftime. Our coach said our tackling was so-so, but that our running and our scrums were great. He also said that the forwards needed to get to the rucks.

In the second half, we were on fire. Our first try was scored when after a long series of plays, our brilliant left wing Will (or 'Lightning' as we call him) ran 10 yards while narrowly avoiding the touch line. The next try was scored by Joseph, a second rower who broke through just about 10 tackles before scoring. Then our star outside center picked up the ball from a ruck and ran 15 yards to score. Then our loosehead prop Max ploughed through their defense for 5 yards to score the try that polished it off. The final score was 27-7 to St.Faiths.

St. Faiths vs. Kings

This was the second time we had played Kings. We had won last time, so we were confident, but there was one player in particular that scared us quite a lot. His name was Jonah. You could never tackle him near his chest or his long, brown hair would get in the way. Whenever he got the ball, he always gained at the minimum 7 yards before being tackled - if you could catch him. He was pretty much the ultimate rugby player: strong, fast, and a tough guy to escape from if you were running. Then, we started the match. The game seemed pretty even for a while. There seemed to be a lot of scrums, but St. Faiths won quite a few of them. Then there was a ruck on the right hand side of the pitch, which Kings won. The scrum half, instead of passing it down the back line, let the left wing take the ball. It turned out to be a pretty good decision. He dodged our right wing and our outside centre, and then dashed down the left side, narrowly avoiding the touch line, and scored with ease.

Then, halftime came along. Our coach said our tackles needed to be better, but that when they scored their try, nobody was to blame, the boy was just too fast.

In the second half, we made more tackles and our offloads were better, but Kings were fighting back. After 5 minutes or so, we won one of their scrums, so our backs got the ball. Now, our backs knew some very good moves that most teams did not know , like Kings, for example. One of these moves involved doing a dummy to the inside center, then faking the dummy but passing to the outside center. That was exactly what they did. Some Kings players were thrown off by the first dummy, but then they must have thought something like," Oh, they are probably gonna do that dummy again, we need to tackle their fly half." But they were caught off guard for real when our outside center got the ball. I saw about five Kings players tackling our fly half. Poor Dominic. However, that move that the backs had created was the reason for the try, scored by our outside center. We were hoping that Sewelly, our full back, would convert the try to make us even with the men in purple. His kick looked like he was going for a set of goalposts about 5 meters to the right of the real ones and just as far down. Horrible. We were all very, very conscious that we had to score another try - and soon. However, right when the game would have ended, there was an identical play to the first try. There was a ruck on the right hand side of the pitch, which Kings won. The scrum half, instead of passing it down the back line, let the left wing take the ball. He dashed down the left side, leaving all of us in our wake and scored. And then the final whistle blew.

St. Faiths vs. Stamford

This match was pretty evenly matched for the whole time. Both teams ran very well, some poor tackles were made, and the ball was fairly evenly distributed (in a rough way, ha-ha) to both teams. However, after 15 minutes or so, Stamford scored a try with their huge tighthead prop, who barreled through our poor defense to score. Then, 5 minutes later, it was halftime. After halftime, Will Sewell, our fullback, broke through quite a few tackles after receiving Stamford's kick-off, but he got pummeled by their huge tighthead prop (this prop is good!). He gained 30 yards for us though. After a foul against Stamford at about midfield, we got possesion and held onto it until a ruck near the try line. We only had 3 men (including me) in the ruck against 5 or 6 opponents.Because of that, they got possesion and held on until the end of the match. To tell you the truth, though, it was really any man's match from the start.

Starters

This blog is about my rugby matches for my school, St. Faiths, which is located in Cambridge. Each post has a match report of a game I played against another school. There should be about 1 post per week, maybe more.