Barker 21—St. Aloysius 0
“by rtd32”
The hallowed grounds of Barker College were looking about as lonely as a fat kid on his birthday as the few students (the loyal few) in the Barker grandstand watched on anxiously to see if their boys could finally notch a win in the CAS competition.
First half
Things looked good for their hopes as, in the first few minutes of the match, Barker received a penalty (a dubious call according to the Aloys supporters) and put the ball downfield for a line out near the Aloys line.
A well executed line out and some rumbling up through the forwards toward the line saw the no. 9, Steve Kirkby, have a quick dash for the line off quickly recycled ball and go over near the sticks – 7-0. This looked like very good rugby from the boys in red – rugby that was typical of their 2012 side.
From there the game became very scrappy very quickly. The ball was turned over a lot as the forwards were extremely evenly matched and, on numerous occasions, forwards from both sides (barker noticeably more than Aloys) ran the ball without support.
That said, the Aloys forwards were determined to make things difficult for the blokes in red and their performance in the rucks was outstanding throughout the whole game, constantly slowing down the barker ball.
The middle chunk of the first half was mainly played in the Aloys half and it must be noted that the Aloys boys capacity to keep barker out when they were close to the line – without giving away penalties – was admirable to say the least. As the great man Nick Cummins would say – these boys were working like they were coming out of the trenches in Gallipoli (don’t know if it was as hard as that)
Eventually, young Smerdon – who was a nuisance to the Aloys line both in defence and attack (he put on what must have been the biggest hit of his life) – broke the line and floated one of the most beautiful passes out wide to Joel Koppe to go over at the end of the half. 14-0.
Second half
After the officials had finished asking each other how their day was, the second half kicked off and began in many ways like the middle of the first. The ball was camped in the middle of the field with no side really dominating.
Three things must be said here:
1. The Barker line out was frustrating. On many occasions they didn’t even contest in defence and they were miraculously inconsistent in attack (sometimes executing very intricate plays to perfection and others getting the most basic things wrong).
2. The Aloys boys came out a lot more fired up. Their hooker was louder than the Aloys and Barker crowds combined – comparatively the Barker side was very quiet
3. Rory Vevers has an extremely good boot.
The most exciting passage of play occurred about halfway through the second half with an Aloys break being shut down by barker in the corner. The Aloys number 10 spotted a five on two overlap and was quick to spread the ball wide. Joel Koppe did extremely well to track the Aloys 11 until the end and making a diving try saver, holding onto the Aloys winger by his shorts.
Also, the Barker 13, Sean Campbell, did extremely well to bundle the Aloys 15 (I think), Rory Vevers, over the touch line after the Aloys 11 offloaded.
The majority of the second half was played in the Barker half, but unfortunately Aloys couldn’t convert with very solid defence from the barker forwards frustrating Aloys into making errors.
One thing that can be said about Barker is that they were very poor at conserving their ball after making a break – one of the reasons why they struggled to get out of their own half in the second half. The other main reasons was because their kicking game was really letting them down.
In the dying stages Barker scored a try similar to their first one, rumbling it through the forwards close to the line, sucking defenders in and then one pass from the ruck and going over (unfortunately didn’t catch number). 21-0
All in all a pretty scrappy game with a lot of speculative plays from both sides. One would think that Aloys were unlucky to come away with any points on the board and certainly deserved something from their forwards efforts.
