QLD U15 VS ACT U15

Written Tuesday 06/10/2009

QLD JUNIOR RUGBY UNION VS ACT JUNIOR RUGBY UNION, Under 15's.

Sunday 04/10/2009 saw the touring Queenslanders facing many hurdles, probably the biggest for mine, the mental process of getting up after such a huge game the day before against NSW, the ACT side itself of course, but lots of little peripheral things like the start of daylight saving, having to get packed up and ready to leave, we weren't coming back to Narrabeen. First stop Easts Rugby Union at Rose Bay, second stop Sydney Airport, third stop Brisbane.

The day was a little better than the day before, but still the ground was wet, there were showers, and the boys in both sides were pretty banged up. The 15's had an issue with strong running hooker Francois Postal waking up with a really bad knee and Matt Gordon damaged his AC joint the previous day, Vincent Cooney had some damage to his hip bone, I think.

However, they all started, with Francois quite serious and struggling to run, only playing for about 5 minutes, but being there for the first try, from our kick off, great pressure and a charge down to Matt McCormick, and he also ended up with the try. Converted with a drop goal to young Angus Dorante, and the game had started well for us.

We seemed to have the field position idea a bit more down pat this particular game, and the boys used the shoe alot better in this match than the one against NSW. Good field position in the wet yields possession of the footy in areas of the paddock that you can work with, and Marcus Tanzer delivered the last pass to put Angus Dorante over for a try adjacent to the posts. Gus of course flicked this one over.

Matt Gordon, while making some strong charges, had lost the power down one side, and one particular run he would have fended and made some huge metres, all he could do was cross the advantage line and take the tackle.

The boys were gaining confidence, and from a poor kick from the ACT. Mica saw some space and ran into it, and we ended up with a very good movement delivering a try to Tyrone Brimble wide down the right hand side, unconverted this time by Matt Gordon.

19 to nil at half time, and it was up to the boys to just finish off and come home as strongly as they could, no doubt with limited petrol in the tank.

Conor Mitchell had an outstanding first half, and was well supported by all around him. Changes were made given that guys like Marley and Conor were pretty badly smashed up the day before, and some didn't get huge game time against NSW, today was their day.

The ACT staged a strong fightback in the second half, getting close to scoring on a number of occasions. However, a characteristic of the Qld boys was their willingness across both days to tackle, and tackle to the death. The line was not crossed, even with the sin binning of big Levi for 15 minutes, and the Qld boys finished off with a good try to Giles Beveridge under the sticks, last pass again thrown by Marcus Tanzer, to Giles running a very nice line.

Young Gus of course threw this one over in front, and the final score remained 26 to nil, rounding out a mission accomplished for this particular group of 15 year olds.

They should have been very happy with their efforts, they defended strongly, across both days, won a match on Saturday where we didn't have any other stat on our side, our scrum was sliced, diced and iced, our turnover rate was horrific, but we got the stat that counted, on the scoreboard, with two tries delivered from pressure in defence, and one of them very well constructed.

The boys and their parents can feel rightly proud of a huge effort from every single one of them, each lad was a contributor and the results would not have been possible without every one of them.