Barker v Shore at Northbridge 30th April 2016
Having watched the Barker 2nd XV nearly pull off a historic win against a bigger and faster Shore outfit, this avid reds supporter would normally be mildly optimistic playing a GPS team that lost every match last year in the GPS comp. However I was not that naïve.
Without a program to go by this writer observed the following player missing from the Barker line-up to face Shore.
Anstey, Stalls, Woodgate, Reimer, Tejcek, Kitchener, lles-Man
No amount of depth can plug those holes unless of course you’re at Joeys.
The game started disastrously for Barker with the return kick from the Shore kick off finding the blindingly fast Shore 15, who with acres of space, accelerated to warp speed and ran around 5 players from his own side of the halfway, to score untouched under the posts. After 20 sec Shore led 7 nil.
That should have been the lesson for Barker and for the rest of the half they did lift their game. A rare Shore error gave Van Woerkom a half chance and he swooped on the loose ball to score under the posts. At 7 all the game was on.
The forwards were pretty much equal. Despite the size dominance of the Shore tight head, the Barker scrum held their own feed well and neither team was dominant in the rucks and malls.
For a while there it was a whistle fest, with both sides giving away technical penalties and after about 5 in a row to the Reds, the ref gave one of the Shore boys a 10 minute rest.
With a player down, both sides started to play it simple. Solid tackling and committed energy in the rucks and malls was entertaining but the scoreboard attendant was not busy. With the 15 players back on the park, another error by Barker put the Shore 11 in space who scored a clinical try.
Oranges Shore lead 14/7
The 2nd half was all Shore.
Despite scoring no tries from 1st phase, Shore made up for it from broken play and a continuous flow of Barker errors.
The Shore 15 (3 tries), 13 (numerous line breaks and try assists) and both wingers (a couple of meat pies each) kept the score board ticking over.
The score line blew out with Shore convincing winners 48 to 7.
Best for Shore: 15,13,1
No real stand outs for Barker except that the forwards really did hold their own.
There is no doubt injury certainly affected the performance of the Barker squad. Shore have a definite star in their 15 and their tight head prop will also no doubt feature in the GPS squads later in the year. Having seen both Shore and Joeys in trials this year I would put Joeys as a 20 point better team than Shore, but for every GPS team, make sure you don’t kick the ball to the Shore 15. He will make you pay with great speed and a very strong kick.
For Barker. Well let’s hope a few of the injuries are not bad and that they can get their best players on the park for the season opener against Trinity next week. The Reds will hold their own in the forwards but they need some magic in the backs to score tries.
