Old Georgians 10 Effingham & Leatherhead 11
For our third league match the Eagles had the advantage of playing on a first class pitch. Combined with the pitch at St. Johns and our own pitch that makes three in a row. The OG pitch showed no negative signs following the visit of Storm Amy. The hardest pitch I played on was made of crushed brick and concrete. We won 6-5 on aggregate.
The match started in cold conditions and a very blustery wind. It was obvious from early exchanges that both teams were “up for it”. The first 10 minutes were controlled by OG – their scrum half organising and running the players. Both sides were prepared to run the ball and both sides had good defensive systems. The OG had a good pack of forwards which with a small ascendancy in this area led to the OG try near enough to the posts to enable the conversion to be made (7-0). The Eagles bounced back and immediately returned play to the OG half. An intended clearance kick fell into the hands of Bridge who covered some 50 metres to score ten metres in from the touch line. The conversion was missed (7-5) The Eagles then enjoyed time in the OG half and with the referee penalising them regularly the Eagles were able to add a penalty, converted by Durbridge (7-8). Half time.
The second half started badly and a loose ball fond OG on the attack. An injury then held up play as Stefanik came off with what looked like a serious knee injury. We wish him well. Following that came a straightforward penalty to OG which they took to go into a 10-8 lead. The game then fluctuated backwards and forwards as the time slipped away. On at least three occasions we were on the OG try line and were penalised. I couldn’t see that the offences were but the players, to their credit, did not remonstrate with the referee. A lot of stoppages. Into injury, well into injury time (about 8 minutes) a penalty to the Eagles – converted by Nickson (who had kicked from the hand impressively all day) (10-11) No more time. End of game.
OG were a good young team and had clearly gone out of their way to mark Bridge closely. The Eagles deserve every credit but perhaps best of all was their defensive work – tackle after tackle.
Well, before I started writing this I had made a mental note to remind everyone next week we are away to the Law Society. They beat us twice last season, fairly convincingly at their place and stuffed us at Browns Lane. A worrying fixture.
At the game today not only did we lose Stefanik to a fairly serious looking knee injury, we had to lose all three reserves so we could be three or four players missing next week. To compound the concern I checked on other scores today …… Southwark Lancers 47 Law Society 21. What does one say?
Iain
