Scots View Game
A great day for Rugby @ Scots yesterday started with the Opening of the David Brockhoff Memorial Team Rooms (aka Change Rooms) by John Eales, who is a Catholic & son goes to View. The Team Rooms were fitted out by Warwick Waugh (Scots Wallaby) & John Eales made a fantastic speach to help Mrs Brockhoff open the Rooms. Other Wallabies such as Dr John Solomon, Tim Gavin, Richard Harry etc were there to witness a very moving ceremony. Brok did most of his "best work" in the change room before, during & after the Game, especially the half time serve if you were losing, so it is a fitting initiative by the Scots Community to remember him in such a way. After such a wet week, the Sun was shining & the Scots Main looked in great condition...amazing the influence of the Catholics!
To the Game, which had such a build up for Premiership contention & Head to Head clashes of Wells/Demsey against Walters/Miller & Horwtiz against Vaux. The Game didn't disappoint! Scots started really strongly with their usual ball in hand running game producing two good tries, the Miller to Stewart to Kellaway one from their own try line one of the best that you'll see anywhere. This Scots Team really back themselves & "Running Rugby" Bob Dwyer would love them! Unfortunately the Scots Captain, Walters, did his shoulder badly trying to get a good hit on Wells in the first 30sec of the game. He continued on, having good impact but had to come off @ the 20min mark. This proved to be a big loss to Scots as Scots lost a bit of cohesion without his leadership & a couple of the "soft" tries were scored around the rucks, which is his defensive strength.
Apart from the unfortunate mistake by Gallagher just on half time to get a charge down for an important View try, Scots looked in charge & reasonably comfortable going into the Break. The score would have been even more comfortable if Kellaway's kicking game was on. The second half was a tight fought affair & it seemed that whoever had the ball, was in charge on the paddock, with both Scots & View throwing the ball around as if it was a dry pitch. View scored a couple of more tries with Vaux finding a few holes in close & Wells playing a strong Captain's knock in both attack & defence. Scots replied with a great try by Kellaway & the last 10 mins was a tense match with Scots trying really hard to pull back the deficit. There have been reports of an all in at the end of the game..this is false, there was a bit of that at the end of the 2nds Game but it mounted to nothing with no send offs or reports. Close to the end of the 1sts the two front rowers Van der Lak & Kulen had a bit of an exchange, which resulted in both getting a yellow but again not much in it.
View deservedly won a great game which was played in great style & spirit. Many great & courageous performances on the paddock but in particular my standout choices were...Wells, Rorke & Vaux from View & Van der lak, Miller, Stewart & Kellaway for Scots.
