Thirsty Thirds made their way across to the north side to face a Uni side looking to get some revenge from a close Royals victory a few weeks ago. Unfortunately our front row stocks have taken a beating due to injuries and with even Supersub Chan unable to lace the boots after recent outings, Royals played 1 short to start the match. On the positive side, this allowed Jussie and Laurie Miller to make their long awaited debuts at prop and with the celebration of Cam Neil’s 150th for the club, the boys were up for the contest.
The first half proved a fairly dour affair with both teams struggling to assert dominance but solid defence from the forward pack, especially from Liam and Choco Mann, along with good tactical kicking from Josh and Sam M giving Royals a solid base in a back and forth start. Unfortunately our discipline was letting us down and Uni opened the scoring with a penalty goal to go up 3-0. Royals came back strong from the kickoff with a good turnover from our two oversize props but once again discipline let us down with a stray elbow from a Uni player leading to some light push and shove. As is so often the case these days, the red card was shown to the Royals player for retaliation and a yellow to Uni. Down to 13, Royals showed good heart to make it to half time with the score still 3-0.
With strong words from Supercoach Chan to concentrate on the simple things, the 2nd half didn’t start well with a simple mistake leading to Uni taking advantage for a soft try in the corner and the conversion making it 10-0. This seemed to fire the boys up however and from the restart Royals played some good shape with strong carries from Tim “Special K” Kinnane and Mr 150 Cam Neil up the middle. Unfortunately little mistakes cost the team and Uni attempted to take advantage with their winger breaking the line from inside their half and looked likely to score until Joshy B showed great pace in cover defence to take him in to touch just short of the tryline. Royals then fought back with good backline movements and runs from Junior and Swainy leading to Swainy running off a great pass to then swerve past the fullback and open the Royals scoring 10-7.
Royals looked likely to get on top with good turnovers to Tyler and Sam M but then let ourselves down again when looking to spread it wide with Uni taking an intercept and running over for another try 14-7. Realising that time was running out, Royals once again came back strong playing well structured footy which was rewarded with Nick “Biggie Smalls” Tankey putting Luke N over in the corner with a good pass to cut the margin back to 5. With the clock running out, Royals tried to throw it around needing to score to take the win but came up short with a late penalty to Uni at the siren leaving the final score 17-12.
Good effort from everyone playing with 13 for most of the game, lots of solid defence and heart shown by the team. We’ll get to training this week to work on improvements for the next game against Gungahlin. Points went to:
3 . Liam Van Der Merwe
2. Jacob Mann
1. Tim Kinnane
