Southwold U15 V Ipswich U15 9 December 2007

Southwold 31 Ipswich 12
Match report by Dave Solomon

Lots of subjects to talk about in relation to today’s match at the coast: The terrible weather forecast, the change of venue due to the Southwold clubhouse being under reconstruction, the absence of nearly fifty per cent of the squad for a variety of reasons, to name a few.

In the event, the pitch was well grassed and none too muddy, if a little on the small side. The weather was far kinder this week than last, as the threatened rain turned up late, exactly coinciding with the close of play. Absences of players was far more of a hurdle for us though. Our burgeoning squad of thirty on paper was a mere seventeen in the flesh today. When you consider that two of them were returning from lengthy injury lay-offs and a good handful are of the new batch of players who don’t usually start the matches, the nature of our task was clearly challenging.

The first half saw Ipswich playing virtually all the period in the Southwold portion of the pitch. With the wind behind us, perhaps we should really have made more of the territorial advantage enjoyed. An impartial judge of what was going on at the scrums and around the base of rucks would have easily spotted multi infringing by the hosts. Many penalties were awarded but perhaps nowhere near the total duly deserved. The Ipswich players seemed far more disciplined in their technical play and understanding of the complex laws of the game than Southwold, in this respect. Again we were very effective in open forward play but too often Allan was thwarted in his supply to the backs by infringing Southwold players. Not that we’re keen to teach anything resembling gamesmanship, but our lads may need to “play the ref” a bit more in such circumstances, in the future. Fight fire with fire?

Anyway, notable achievements today included the first full matches for Ben Brown and Alex Hitter. Both these relatively new guys are coming on rapidly. Alex is certainly now playing in an appropriate position in the second row and very much looks the part as he learns on the job from those around him. Ben continues to impress with his level of commitment and endeavour. He is finding out the difficulties of the apparently, relatively easy, wing position and certainly learned a whole lot about the offside law today!

Also to receive credit today is a long list of players, topped in my opinion by Sam Tipping. This unsung stalwart of a player continues to make big strides in improving his contribution to the side. He caught the eye in several instances, most notably when peeling off a maul and tearing into the opposition before setting up text book ruck ball for the next players in. Seeing this makes all the hard work on Tuesdays worthwhile, hey Sam! Harry Greenall played his usual high octane game of disruption to the opposition, interspersed with hard charging runs to chase up anything loose. Tom O'Reilly continues to impress. His safe hands in the number two position at the line out, coupled with our Suffolk squad hooker, Kyle Hedges , throwing in with real confidence, meant we were more effective at the line out than ever before in living memory! Ben Grimwood played a solid game at flyhalf and kicked from hand well although I think he misses his opportunity to run in space when playing this pivotal role.

The other role vacated by George Solomon today was that of goal kicker. He may not get this one back though as the deputy was none other than Alexander Haywood Smith. His practise kick prior to the start had virtually burst the ball, prior to sailing through the sticks and when called upon in the match, slotted a difficult wide right attempt home and struck the upright at cross bar height when kicking from very wide left.

Our newest entrants to the sick bay are Trung, who aggravated his old ankle injury and took no further meaningful part in the game and Tom Rice, who again delivered a master class of fullback play, rapidly making this position his own. Dad Andy was even happy this week to see Tom now kicking to very good effect in addition to his running game which we have all witnessed recently. Poor old Tom took several hard knocks and had to come off twice. Knocks to the knee and hip are awaiting diagnosis of seriousness, in advance of an important cup match next week.

Our backs line today had a very experimental look to it. The opposition had several tidy runners and man for man appeared larger than us. It is to the credit of our lads that they failed to score any points against us during the first twenty minutes of the match.

Ed Barker and George Meggs (Meggsy) were the centre partnership for much of the match, as it turned out. Ed looked composed in the tackle and stylish when running with the ball and Meggsy continues to defy appearances when given the ball in space. Good yardage was made by him on more than one occasion.

It took twenty minutes for the deadlock to be broken. During our period of prolonged pressure and encampment in the Southwold half, a penalty move was worked out (eventually) which saw Allan tap and pass to Henry Lane. Guilty on occasions of not hitting contact with his fully available momentum, Henry, this time, thumped in to the defenders good and hard, but more impressively, kept the ball available behind him as he drove on to the ground. Who should be right there with him but that man, Tom O' Reiilly. He plucked the ball off big H and now a few metres out, with great technique, drove low and hard for the line. Try (converted).

Unfortunately, from the restart kick, we fumbled (juggled) the catch and soon thereafter were defending a scrum in our own third of the field. A rapid retaliatory try was duly scored then and at the interval we were a mixture of pleased to be ahead and disappointed to have let them get a sniff of our try line.

The second half saw us start poorly and during this ten to fifteen minute period, the hosts scored frequently and soon took the score away from us. Our injury problems and the multitude of players out of position were issues really beginning to bite. Credit to the boys though, as a refusal to let the heads drop and their renowned never say die attitude meant that the scoring wasn’t over.

Tom Rice was instrumental in establishing territory gains still with his kicking game, as mentioned. From a scrum on the right side of the field, the backs were unleashed in what is known internally as our Mars Bar move. Meggsy was the key player in this. Having passed from his outside centre berth to Ben Brown on the left wing, he continued his run, looping outside the sure-handling Ben who drew his tackler and off-loaded to the looping Meggsy. As George M now set off for the Southwold try line it seemed that numbers were against him. The hosts had one, if not two extra players lying in wait for him but no fear, with a jink of those famous hips and a trajectory for the corner flag, he was in. A great try, worthy of winning any match then, but on this occasion just serving as damage reduction, as it turned out.

A good match played in appropriate spirit by both sides. We look forward to the return fixture, next year, at our place.

The starting line up was as follows; 1 Henry, 2 Kyle, 3 Joe, 4 Alex H, 5 Tom O, 6 Harry, 7 Sam T, 8 Alexander HS, 9 Allan, 10 Ben G, 11 Ben B, 12 Trung, 13 George M, 14 Aiden, 15 Tom C. Substitutes for injuries brought on Ed at inside centre and Adam at wing forward.