Eagles Senior 1XV vs Old Whitgifian 1XV

Recap

On a blustery and wet afternoon, both sides defied the conditions to offer up a decent game of rugby, which could of gone either way until an outside break by the visitors in the backs saw them take the spoils with 5 minutes to go.

Effingham playing with the wind in the first period started brightly with forward charges by the Sam Maycock, Ben Tame and impressive debutant Patrick Mermelstein Lyons. They kept probing but couldnt get any reward and indeed the visitors soaked up the pressure and won a penalty which their fly half slotted. Effingham took the lead when young centre James Bridge found space in the middle, bounced the first attempted tackle and then rounded the full back to score. Joe Blunt added the extras to take the lead to 7 – 3.

Old Whits hit back when a forward surge was repelled by the home side but the scrum half spotted a gap down the blind and sniped in for the score. Blunt added a penalty on the stroke of half time to make it 10 – 10 at the break.

Effingham drew first blood in the second half when a Matt Manning chip was gathered by that man Bridge who using his blistering pace scuttled in from 50 metres. The game ebbed and flowed both ways until the decisive outside break with minutes to go to give Old Whits the victory by 7 points.