Home | MORE NEWS | Sub-18 v Académica

Sub-18 v Académica

By
Font size: Decrease font Enlarge font
sub-18 jubilation sub-18 jubilation

Sub-18s pull off a famous win to make it three on the trot. Read match report and view photos here.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Match Report by Damian Steele

The Sub 18s continued on their winning way, completing their hat-trick of consecutive victories with a hard fought 15-13 result over Académica on Sunday.

There were many reasons that the Sub 18s were not going to win this game: strong form from Académica, no training last week, player absences and injuries, last minute pull outs, and poor weather. However, nobody told the 18 players who took the field how the script was supposed to run, and they battled valiantly for our best result of the season.
.
Mr Ferris had spent his half term holiday poring over Académica´s videos and results, and also the patterns of our own games. He divulged an ingenious plan to go into the wind in the first half, in the hope of sticking with Académica, then allowing the wind to carry us home in the second half. The boys executed the plan well, and we went to the break at 0-0 following a gutsy defensive performance in the first half. We were still a long way from home, especially as we´d rarely made good use of the ball and Académica took an early 5-0 lead very early in the second half. A sequence of good phases and offloading saw Thomas Pimenta cross out wide to make the score 5-5.
.
Académica scored next to make it 10-5, but our boys were finding some rhythm in attack and we capitalized on good field position with a penalty goal to Charlie Frost to make it 10-8 with 15 minutes to go. Académica relied on their (excessive) size and weight for the next passage of play, and slowly trudged the ball up field through their forwards. Some spirited, but ineffective tackling allowed their big boys to roll forward into our 22m, which gave their flyhalf the opportunity to slot a drop goal and take a 13-8 lead into the final 10 minutes.
With the scent of victory still very much in their nostrils, our boys rallied together and maintained possession and field position for the final part of the game, culminating in Mathieu Rodrigues diving over from close range with no time left on the referee´s watch. It seemed Mathieu was well rehearsed in how to dive over the tryline, as he´d illegally dived into practically every ruck possible in the second half of the match.
.
A draw would´ve been a great, albeit bitter sweet result, for our boys who had defied the odds to stick with their fancied opposition for the duration of the game. Step forward our resident Irishman, Mr Evin Fay, who coolly slotted the conversion from 15m to the left of the sticks, only to be swamped by team mates and supporters alike, rejoicing in the 15-13 victory.
.
The crowd went wild, the champagne bottles popped, Mr Ferris patted his own back, Mr Mount high fived himself, Mr Fay took 162 pictures of the group (including 159 zoomed in on his heroic son), as Academica were left to lament what could´ve, should´ve and would´ve been, but ultimately wasn´t!
.
Congratulations to all the boys who took to the field in yesterday´s match, and also to the supporters who came along to watch. Everyone contributed very well to the victory, but Man of the Match for the day was Franziscus Frost, who tackled like a legend, passed well, and was a constant threat around the ruck base.
.
We get back to work this week in preparation for the return clash with Academica in Coimbra in 2 weeks time.
.
POINTS:
Tries - Thomas Pimenta, Mathieu Rodrigues
Conversion - Evin Fay
Penalty - Charlie Frost
.
MAN OF THE MATCH:
Franziscus Frost
.
.
Click here to see Pater Fay's images from the sub-18 game: http://goo.gl/OSNZv
  • Email to a friend Email to a friend
  • Print version Print version
  • Plain text Plain text

Tagged as:

No tags for this article

Rate this article

5.00