It was a glorious day at Omihi but when I arrived 15 minutes into the game and saw the boys 19-0 down the day all of a sudden didn’t seem so glorious, it didn’t take me long to work out that Glenmark’s damage was being done by their Fijian midfield when a few minutes later they pounced with lightening speed to make it 26-0, things really weren’t looking good and the worst was running through most of our minds, things started to calm down a bit when the forwards kept it tight keeping the ball away from Glenmark’s hands, more driving play from James Lowe, Matt King and Alex Pitt put the home pack on the back foot leaving Dave Ermerins a little room to work with, Dave was constantly sniping around the fringes making life a little more difficult for the home side then when the ball came out Bertie Hopkin was keeping that momentum going drawing in the home defence but we were missing the impact of Brad Mackenzie both in defence and in attack against the larger opposition, Scotty Barber and Ethan Cameron constantly probed for gaps to give either Jarrod Heap or Ben Hopewell a half break and it wasn’t long before a five pointer in the left corner went on the scoreboard, Glenmark came straight back at the Ashley defence and with an infringement saw them take a 29-5 advantage into the break, this really was a game of two halves and the injury hit Ashley side were not about to roll over and up stepped captain Jamie Young and lead from the front looking for the ball and looking to go somewhere with it and that somewhere was forward, the lineout was on fire with absolute precision throwing from Andre Barrett and good hands from Warren Rean and Si Heerink giving a good platform for Dave Ermerins to work from making life a little easier for the backs to fire on all cylinders, the commitment shown in the second half was unbelievable with Richie Hancox giving the home side a hard time when they tried to create any kind of attack but when Warren Rean came off with a blood injury uncertainty crept in, it didn’t need to as Tom Devereaux stepped in and showed he is most certainly up to the task making and taking big hits then picking himself up to do it again and again, the work rate was intense as this game was being played at 100 Mph in (or 160Kmh to you youngsters ) and the display of running rugby was brilliant to watch, the boys did themselves proud yesterday and Glenmark were breathing a sigh of relief that the ref blew up on time or it could have been a very different outcome, great effort boys.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 22:36:38 +0000
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