St. Faiths vs. Kings Ely (rugby)

Today we were really motivated to beat Kings Ely, firstly because Kings Cambridge had beaten us already and secondly because the season is coming to a close next week and we want to end it on a high note.

During the first part of the game, the ball must have traveled everywhere on the field except the try zone. Domination was going back and forth between the two teams. We were extremely dominant in rucks and scrums, but we conceded lots of penalties as well. However, one ruck that St. Faiths won proved to be fatal for Kings Ely because as soon as our fakey-fakey inside centre Ed Fairey received the ball, he did his business and gave us our first try.

The second half was the flower of our performance. Try #2 was scored by Will 'Lightnin' Zeitlyn, who, as soon as he saw a gasp in Kings Ely's defense, went straight for it. Nobody on St. Faiths was expecting this, so he had no support and 5 opponents on his tail. It seemed like milliseconds before he raced into the try zone, and just for the heck of it, he ran sideways to score under the posts. He seemed to have made his mark on that encounter, but he wanted more. He scored again, but that time he wasn't so sure about himself. He got tackled, but stretched his arms just enough to place the ball on the try line. King's Ely never underestimated him again. He even got the man of the match award after the game finished with a final score of 19-0 to St. Faiths. Guess what? It was even his birthday. What a lovely birthday present for him.

St. Faiths vs Bishop's Stortford

The first half of this match was an absolute blowout.Four times the offense of Bishop’s Stortford snuck through the gaps in our defense to score.We were deep in Bishop’s Stortford’s half until their offense got the ball and crept up the pitch, breakdown by breakdown, play by play.Finally, a ruck near our posts resulted in their blonde full-back diving into the try zone, capping the outstanding play off.However, our star inside centre Ed Fairey bravely blocked their attempted conversion with his hands.We could still pull in the lead if we tried hard.
Try Number Two resulted in poor tackling from St. Faiths, with one of their men driving the swarm of red and black jerseys surrounding him until the ball came to rest just right of the posts in the try zone.
The third try occurred when one of our men handled the ball in a ruck 5 meters from the posts.This gave Bishop’s Stortford a penalty in which their man dodged and fought his way 5 meters for the try.
The final try of the first half happened when their full back intercepted a pass down our back line and ran almost 70 meters.Our brilliant fly half Dominic Lea pursued him the whole time and just before the opposition scored again, he attempted a last-gasp dive but he didn’t quite reach Bishop’s Stortford’s man, who slid under the posts in a wild celebration.It wasn’t a great start to the first half, but we knew that the only way we could go was up.St. Faiths was definitely right about going up.We held Bishop's Stortford at 0-0 for almost the whole second half, with some close calls here and there. Then, at the last moment, we fumbled a pass in the try zone due to handling errors from both the passer and the receiver and many jerseys scrambled for the ball, but Bishop’s Stortford touched it down for the final try.

St. Faiths vs. Felsted

There had been a rugby tournament in October that St. Faiths had played, at a school called New Hall. We won our group matches, but guess who we lost to in the semifinals? Felsted. We were looking to get revenge from them, but unfortunately for us, we lost 2 tries to nil.

In the first half, Felsted dominated and scored a try, their lock pummeling through our defense to score. There was no real action other than the try, but we kept them at 7 points. At halftime, our coach said that the forwards needed to get to the rucks and the tackling needed to be better.

The halftime break seemed to be the spark for us. Our tackling was still iffy, but our forwards were getting to the rucks. However, Felsted still had the advantage over us in terms of possession and scored the winning try with one of their backs dodging our defense and running to score the concluding try.

St. Faiths vs. St. Johns

Like our match against Kings, there was one player who we feared quite a lot. His name was Ali Russell. He was considerably bigger than Jonah (see the link in line 1), but Jonah was just as good as Ali in terms of quickness and tackling. Shown to the left is Tom Wilkinson, our speedy right winger. He played very well on his runs on the right hand side. Unfortunately, the rest of the team didn't do well enough. The final score was 19-7, St. Johns winning.

In the first half, the tempo was fast, and the ball was inside the St. Johns half for almost all the time. What was frustrating was the fact that the minute and a half that they had the ball in our half was the play that scored them their first try, which was not converted. So at halftime, we thought that if we scored a try and converted it, that we could hold on until the end of the game.

St. Johns proved us wrong. One of them barged through our defense to score, and near the end of the game, Ali Russell sprinted down the left hand side of the pitch to score, although many of our team (including me) saw him and thought that he was out of bounds during the first part of his run. However, our scrum half had scored a try in between the two St. Johns tries of the second half. So at least the loss wasn't a blowout.