AECC RFC 10
AECC Graduates 12
Well, all good things must come to an end, and the AECC Rugby team’s unbeaten stretch of two games has proven to be no exception. On a day where 16 (sixteen!) of the College’s fine rugby collective were unavailable, it was a wonder a side was put out at all, let alone being able to afford the luxury of lending Rob Beaven to the graduates.
The game kicked off in much the same fashion as the week preceding it; in chaos. As if starting 14-a-side were not enough, fly-half Tom White disappeared to put his kit on, whilst his team-mates did their level best to play without him. Once he arrived, though, White made a fine job of his first game in the No. 10 jersey, his kicking for touch and distribution a feature of his play. Pieter Le Roux, the AECC Rugby dichotomy, reverted from his more recent role in the front row to his previous position of inside centre, and consistently looked dangerous going forward. Why anyone wearing a 13 shirt would want to tackle him is a question I have yet to find an answer for – the man is built like the proverbial brick outhouse. With Le Roux’s crash ball being a feature of the College’s play in the early stages of the game, and the AECC forwards rumbling on the pick-and-go, the omens looked good. Luc Meersseman showed what a force he can be both from the base of the scrum and in broken play, with tacklers falling by the wayside, and Ricky Davis’ frankly excellent work on his debut for the College appears to have solved their scrum-half quandary – let’s hope he decides to play some more. But this was a sloppy game, with commonplace handling errors. Both front rows will have been relieved that the scrums were uncontested!
The Graduates were keen to pounce on the AECC errors, and visa versa. With some rare common sense refereeing, the game fast became an end-to-end battle of offloads, interceptions and last-ditch tackles. “Silver Fox” Jon Cook even managed to gather a cheeky chip and chase but was adjudged to have been held up over the line, saving the College’s graces. First blood was drawn by the Graduates soon after, though, as some slick hands and poor tackling off turnover ball let the Graduates penetrate the College tryline.
The College hit back soon after from a lineout. As usual, Laurence Plant was at the heart of the lineout superiority (the Graduates barely won a clean lineout ball all day,) but this time it was quick thinking from Tom Waller (!) that effected the try – with the lineout being taken quickly to Plant, a simple back and forth down the tramlines put plant in for his first ever AECC try. Waller stepped up to take the conversion, and instantly made up for his previous good work.
In the second half, the College’s injury epidemic continued. Guy Falco and Tom Waller both had to leave the field with injury, forcing the game down to 12-a-side. The Grads ran in a try while Falco lay stricken on the field, forcing a re-shuffle of the College team. With 5 minutes to go and the score at 12-5 in the Grads’ favour, AECC had to do something – and Antoine Helsen did his darndest to cock that something up. This reporter forgets how the opportunity came about (I’m pretty sure Mike Richards had something to do with it,) but Helsen found himself in midfield space and made a beeline for the, er, tryline. His pace outstripping that of everyone else, Helsen must have read the last match report and seemed to make some effort to round another few defenders over line to make an easy conversion attempt, dropping the ball in the process (backwards, apparently) and then diving on his own loose ball for the try. With a certain amount of normality restored, Tom White stepped up to take this conversion to square the game from wide out, agonizingly hitting the outside of the post.
One long possession later, the final whistle went and AECC RFC had been vanquished for the first time in the 2007-8 season.
A big thankyou must go to everyone who played, but especially Ricky Davis, Neil Petrie and James Holman for stepping up at the last minute, and to Callum Forrest and his mates who made up the vast majority of the Graduate team. Also a massive thankyou to East Dorset RFC for hosting the game. Without these people, the game would not have gone ahead.
“AECC RFC: Still not as bad as England.”
AECC: Helsen, Petrie, Falco, Le Roux, Crawford, White, Davis, Richards, Holman, Friis, Dunmall, Plant, Waller, Meersseman.
Honourable mention: Beaven (Graduates)
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