Watching the game at Northbridge yesterday had me on the edge of my seat for the vast majority of the game, with some great running rugby and big hits throughout.
An injury early to View No. 8 Gehrig led to the replacement No. 20 being sin-binned for what the referee labelled as "talking back", would love to know what he said.
The outside backs for View dominated for the entire game, with all their tries coming down the right wing, something that Shore will have to address. Even with the speed that Rixon has, his poor defensive ability was put on display, furthermore I think he was pretty lucky to stay in the game after dropping No.11 O'Reilly on his head, thats a red card 9 times out of 10.
However, Shore stuck around in the first half, with some nifty tries of their own.
As the game wore on, tension built and despite suffering from clear amounts of pain to his shoulder, No. 10 McGregor led from the front with his kicks downfield, and his overall decision making including a try of his own in the corner. The game seemed all but over
But as Shore always seem to do against Riverview, they came back again and all of a sudden the deficit was 5 with three minutes remaining. A scrum 5 metres out on last play was Shore's last chance, with a deafening silence over Northbridge, the Shore No.10 Cowley through a ball to No.12 Sinclair and then immediately wrapped around, a play that they had used earlier and Riverview picked up on it, with the No.15 Hurley capitalising by taking an intercept, and McGregor kicking it out for the end of play. From my vantage point, if Sinclair held on to it, a decent sized hole had formed and surely he was through for a try, guess thats what inexperience does to a team (He is in Year 10).
Points:
View:
3 - Mete, proved a constant threat down the right wing in scoring two and assisting on another.
2 - Fenn, his hard ball running and offloading was hard for Shore to contain, being in Year 11, we'll see plenty more of him to come.
1 - McGregor, still not back to his Schoolboy form but led from the front and made timely decisions that other players simply can't make.
Shore:
3 - Cowley, despite constant pressure from the View backline in attack he made some good passes and led well.
2 - Rixon, despite defensive lapses had some shining moments in attack, has a good boot on him and once he gets going, his hard to track down.
1 - Doyle, led the forwards well in the line outs.
Heres to a great season to come, probably the most wide open I've seen in a while. Can't wait till next term.