First loss but no concerns.

A visit to Old Ruts has been eagerly anticipated this season, a team we narrowly lost to on tour last year in a thrillingly close play off game for the Plate. We were certainly looking for a rematch and hopefully some retribution. However as the date got closer we lost more and more players. 10 in total were ultimately unavailable to attend, all fairly key and a good majority of them forwards. Based on our original predicted numbers of circa 25, Old Ruts had planned for 4 x 20 minute quarters as they would themselves have nearly 30 boys present.

With just 18 of ours on the day it looked like a tough task ahead, especially with once again many of our boys playing out of position; holes in the forwards duly filled in by traditional backs. A couple of fairly early tries to the hosts and it did look like this might be a runaway, but as ever our boys didn't panic and got stuck in. Before long we found a footing, defence tightened admirably, during the next 2 quarters we struck back to level the score. Some excellent work from the pack given it's cobbled together nature, ably supported with some great running play in the backs. With only 3 subs to rotate though the boys were inevitably tiring, and the home team with greater numbers were able to rest & swap a good percentage each quarter. Ruts were great hosts though, friendly & flexible and would have happily played a final game in-house had we wanted to call it a day there, but consensus was we could go another quarter and so it was. We managed to apply pressure for much of the last quarter but failed to do quite enough, with tired legs and bodies, 2 final tries were conceded in the closing stages to let Ruts go up by 10. Well done all, nothing to be ashamed of and indeed plenty to be proud about.

Final Score 41-31 to Ruts

Scorers

Adam 2T
Ben I 3C
Joshua 1T
Harrison 1T
Jake 1T