Here is a general report of the third GPS game of the week:
Scots 43 — Riverview 10
by “Whose That Guy”
Many hoped the anticipated game between Scots and Riverview would go down to the wire as the 2nd XV game did, but it wasn’t to be.
There were some players missing: two of Riverview’s best players, 8. Ben Hunt and 9. Michael Kennedy, were injured and though Hunt could return before the end of the season, Kennedy would not. No. 8 Angus Crichton was not available for Scots.
Scots had other changes also: they reshuffled their backline with Andrew Kellaway, who played flyhalf for Scots in the first two rounds, swapping with Callum Styles, who had been the fullback.
Scots dominated everything, were quick to the break down and made few handling errors; but they gave away several penalties early in the second half. This nearly let Riverview back in the game, but Scots were let off the hook because View lost too much lineout ball after they booted penalty kicks into touch. To be fair: it was difficult to throw the ball to the lineout accurately in the windy conditions.
Riverview threatened sometimes when they strung some phases together but handling errors nearly always let let Scots off the hook. Some poor View defence before half-time killed it for them, as missed one-on-one tackles led to Scots’ points on a few occasions.
View never gave up but were out-muscled in every part of the game and losing a man to the bin did not help.
Scots ran away with the game and Andrew Kellaway showed why he is the Australian Schools’ fullback. He had a great performance including scoring a brilliant try running outside the Riverview back line as if they were stuck in the mud.
He has some seriousy quick acceleration off the mark and although it was obvious that the View plan was to kick the ball away from him (and it worked the majority of the time) he still got it too much, and was usually dangerous when he did.
The nature of their loss will disappoint Riverview, who will realise that their chances of winning the premiership are now slim. On the other hand the Scots’ boys will have a confidence boost for the big game next week against Newington.
Well done to Scots on an excellent game, but they have a few things to work on in preparation for next week’s stern task of taking on the champions at Stanmore.
Photos of Scots v. Riverview by “Jasdec”
