Queensland Red wins Under 16 Championship

The big match on finals day was for the John Eales Shield between two undefeated Division I teams: Queensland Red and NSW Schools.

Qld Red was favoured to win and they did so in the first fifteen minutes.

Queensland Red 31 — NSW Schools 7

by “George Smith”

Riverview; Warm 20 deg with a puff of breeze.

Today Queensland Red dished out the same punishment that NSW Schools gave to their second Qld team (Qld White) yesterday. NSW were never in the hunt and struggled for everything all day.

Schools started with their 19 lock (Gittoes) ,21 half Goddard), wing 23 (Cullen) – and Qld with their two back up props 17 (Stowers), 18 (Flitcroft)

The Scoring

First Half

Qld running towards the scoreboard started the scoring with a neat backline passing across to the left of the field then chipped kick downfield leaving Schools at ‘sixes and sevens’ for left winger Sam Edwards (#14) to score in the left corner.

Soon afterwards Qld were back in the faces of the NSW Schools players and spun it right for their other winger to score, Dean Bender (#11) in the left corner. Eli Pilz (#9) converted. Qld were punishing the Schools team as they scored both times off missed tackles.

Another error by Schools from a loose pass by their captain, Jack McGregor (#10) and Qld picked the loose ball up and ran 60m to score under the posts by Izaia Perese (#13). Pilz (#9) converted easily and the score was suddenly 19-0 after 15 minutes!

NSW malaise continued. After Qld’s #14 was yellow carded for knocking the ball down in the red zone they couldn’t convert. Poor passing, lost line-outs and dropped crash ball, all in the attacking zone, saw NSW scoreless for the half.

Second half

The second half was no different to the first. Schools switched their flyhalf and fullback in a bid to get a better attack. However, Qld applied unrelenting pressure through wide and hard running, especially by the blockbusting centres (Calvin Pritchard #12 and Izaia Perese #13) and soon they added another try. Their hooker Josh Webb (#2) scooted down the try line to score a spectacular try around the corner post.

Through another four missed Schools’ tackles Qld attacked from 50m out and their left winger Sam Edwards (#14) scored his second try in the popular left corner. Pilz (#9) converted and the score was 31-0.

Schools had their best scoring opportunity after 60mins of playing where they attacked several times Qld’s tryline only to be repelled. After an impatient, desperate loose pass by the #15 (Maddox) Qld scooted downfield and after a couple of phases found themselves 75m downfield and attacking yet again.

Schools then regrouped and won a tighthead scrum that allowed their enterprising centre, Luke Lough (#12) to score near the posts with McGregor making the conversion. After another five minutes the ref called full time with the scoreboard showing that Queenland Red 31 defeated NSW Schools 7.

The Players

 Queensland Red

The Qld centres , Calvin Pritchard #12 and Izaia Perese #13 were dangerous all day. They ran hard and fast, tackled hard and caused all sorts of issues to the Schools team whenever they were near the ball. Of the forwards, Angus Scott-Young (#5) played like his heritage and was unrelenting and tough around the pigpen.

NSW Schools

Many of the Schools’ star players couldn’t get into the game today. This was more due to the excellent work of Qld Red than just having off days. However, Nat Gittoes (#19) justified his starting run-on with a solid game all day. Jack Maddox (#15) tried valiantly both at full back and fly half (in the second stanza) which provided short sparks of hope rather than anything concrete.

Summary

Qld Red played to the GaGr-land predictions of last night. They were too big, too tough and too fast for NSW Schools. They successfully shut out Schools for 95% of the game and never looked like being in trouble.

3rd/4th Play off Match

Sydney Juniors 27 —Queensland White 7

by “Hugh Jarse”

Oval 2, 10 am kickoff.

First half

The Bronze Medal match kicked off on field 2 in vastly different conditions to the previous day. It was a pleasant and sunny 17 degrees temperature with a light breeze favouring them from the South that favoured the Sydney Juniors in the first half.

While playing on field 2 on the final day can disappoint, Sydney showed that they were there to mean business as they quickly ran in unconverted tries in the first quarter of the match, scored by #15 C Hurley, A. Nother, and #12 J Hawkins. Look away at the wrong time on field and there is no ground announcer to help you to record correct details!

Despite being behind 15 – 0 on the scoreboard, Queensland seemed to dominate much of the first half, and while the possession stats will be in their favour they just seemed to lack the knock out punch to break open the Juniors tight defence.

The Juniors were playing like the Wallabies and surviving on scraps of possession, but they did look sharp when they had the pill with some hard straight running. Following another Wallabies pattern of play, both sides were guilty of inaccurate work at the breakdowns which resulted in lots of turnovers and penalties from the tackle contest.

The Queensland team were held up across the Juniors line several times with desperate defence, and in a sign of the physical toll of the week, the big Qld piggies seemed to run out of puff and oranges couldn’t come soon enough for them.

Half time: Sydney Juniors lead 15 (3 Tries) – 0.

Second half

Suitably refreshed by the half time oranges, Queensland kicked off from the South with the breeze behind them, and they were quickly rattled after Juniors #8 C King bullocked over for a fine piggies try in the 3rd minute of the second stanza. #10 J Hawkins added the extra points to make it 22 – 0 to Sydney.

This roused the Queenslanders into action and once again they dominated the possession stakes for most of the rest of the half but were unable to get any reward, although they were held up across the line on several occasions and it was only the resolute defence of the Sydney lads that kept them from scoring. After a succession of repeated breakdown penalties in their red zone, the Juniors could count themselves lucky that the referee did not reach for the cards in his pocket. 6 minutes later the Juniors luck ran out and on a Assistant Referee report, they lost a player to the Sin Bin for a dangerous tackle.

As sometimes happens, losing a player seemed to lift the Juniors efforts and, in the 20th minute after some sustained pressure and good breakdown work, their #21 J Veru danced through about 4 would be tacklers for what proved to be the last score for the local team. With 10 minutes to go, it was 27 – 0 to Sydney as the conversion attempt failed to add the extra points.

The last 10 minutes were all Queensland and they threw everything at the Sydney boys, again going very close to scoring on several occasions. Inevitably under the weight of pressure and possession, nippy half back for the Whites #21 J Lenac looked up from a ruck 1 metre out and seeing space, like all halfbacks do, he cheekily darted through the thinnest of gaps to get the first try for his team in the 28th minute 5 metres to the right of the posts. #10 J Carroll added the extras with a simple conversion to make the score 27 – 7.

Full time: Sydney Juniors 27 (5 Tries, 1 Con) defeated Queensland White 7 (1 Try, 1 Con)

(Half time: Sydney Juniors lead 15 (3 Tries) – 0.)

The Game

Queensland White dominated most of the game, and had enough ball and created opportunities to win several games. In the face of dogged defence from the Sydney lads, they were just unable to finish most of their opportunities off, particularly when they had a numerical advantage for 10 minutes while a Sydney boy sat in the naughty boy’s chair.

We saw parallels to the current Wallaby execution in that far too often the Queensland forward runners were taking the ball flat footed and consequently knocked over behind the advantage line by the aggressive Sydney defence. Both sides were also undone with inaccurate work at the breakdowns, and cut out passes that simply allowed the defence to easily drift to follow the ball.

On the back of their stoic defence, and their ability to score from the half chances they created, Sydney Juniors deserved their comfortable victory in the Bronze Medal Match.

Significant Contributing Players:

Sydney Juniors: #12 J Hawkins, #5 E Faatui, #8 C King, #3 W McRae

Queensland Whites: #8 C McKenzie, #21 J Lenac, #13 D Riley

Wrap-up

Once again the local folk are left wondering if Schools or Juniors were the “better” team. To borrow from a Brian Westlake anecdote on the Scholarship thread, I overheard two Rugby Mums debriefing their sons on their teams performance today.

The Sydney Juniors Mum said “Don’t worry son, even though you didn’t make the final, you got closer to the Reds than the Schools were, and you flogged the Whites, so Juniors are the best team”.

Elsewhere, the NSW Schools Mum was overheard saying “We made it to the final and beat the White team by more that the Juniors did, and we didn’t have {names omitted}, so you guys are the best NSW team.”

We will never know.

Comment

It felt like 2012 deja vu all again as Reds ran up their tally against the schools, but the deja vu Fairy didn’t give us the second half turn around that we saw last year.

The Reds were a very complete and very physical team, and were on a level above the Juniors, Whites, and Schools. If anything I was disappointed with the quality of the Whites this year.

The last 2 years there has been little between Juniors and Schools, and last year there was not all that marked a gap between Red and White. This year Whites were clearly a level below Juniors and Schools, with Pool B the pool of Death.

See you on Saturday at Knox, and then who knows what is going to happen next year with the U16’s.

Change is definitely in the air.

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