Rugbyfest at Daceyville—Pacific Rugby Cup, Junior Gold Cup and Under 20s

Australian Barbarians  26—NSW Colts  21

In their second-last trial before their final 28 players are picked for the National Under 20s Competition, the NSW Colts went down to an Australian Barbarians side of senior players, but not before they played some cracking rugby.

The Barbarians started with constant pressure and eventually no.8 Ben Matwijow crashed over. The Colts responded with a nice set move for 13. Benson Fakau who got a five-pointer; when his try was converted the score was Colts 7—Barbarians 5.

The Baas, showing the greater physicality of older players, were next to score with a lineout drive try to 4. Michael O’Hea.

Then the NSW Colts scored with a signature move when 11. Andrew Kellaway received a nice pass and hared along touch then drew the last defender.  He passed inside to his ex-Scots teammate, Mitch Short, to score near the posts.  The Colts were just ahead, 14-12, at half-time.

The Colts started as well after oranges as they finished before them.  Ned Hanigan, who enhanced his reputation on the recent Australian Schoolboys tour, scored after a series of pick and goes.

After the conversion the Colts were ahead 21-12, but the Barbarians hit back when 6. Andrew Cox, powered onto quick ruck ball in the Colts 22, and with nothing but grass in front of him, scored near the posts.

After the conversion the Colts were still ahead but by only 21-19.  It was “Game On”.

The older Barbarians had the vibe of the game by this time and finished stronger than their younger opponents.

They scored from a set-piece move from a scrum and won the game 26-21.

Junior Gold Cup

I wasn’t sure that I would stay too long after the Barbarians-Colts match.  Maybe I would stay just long enough to take a few photos of the boys, but the quality of the rugby, and the passion of the contests, sucked me into staying.

After watching the Under 15s, I couldn’t wait for the Under 17 match to start.

Under 15s        Sydney South 55—South Australia 17

The visitors were first to score, from a kick through, but the home team countered with a barge try from a tap penalty kick (see photo).

Penalties were swapped then Souths scored from a slick back line move.

At oranges the score was Sydney South 17—South Australia 10.

South Australia was  still in the game against their more-fancied rivals and they shocked Souths with a beautiful team try after the kick-off to level the scoring 17-17.

Unfortunately for them Souths responded in the same way after the restart and scored wide out.

The score was 22-17 to Sydney South and that was when the home team started dominating,  The visitors were tiring and the local reserve players were hard to handle.

Sydney South scored five tries after that with one of their reserve centres carving up every time he had the ball, like an older boy who could have held his own in the Under 17s.

The final score of Sydney South 55—South Australia 17 did not reflect the effort that the visitors put in.

I particularly liked the comment of the South Australia captain to his team, under their goal posts, waiting for yet another conversion late in the game, when he said:

There’s five minutes to go—make this the best five minutes of rugby you will ever play.

I nearly cried—that’s gold mate, gold.

Under 17s        Sydney South 22—South Australia 5

With the sun under the horizon and the lights on full blast the boys from both teams put on some cracking moves.

There wasn’t a lot in it but more of the Sydney South moves worked and they defended better.

Sydney South started the scoring early, under the posts.  The score became 7-0 after the only successful conversion on a windy night.

Then after a canny kick through Souths got good field position and scored in the corner.

South Australia were two tries down but responded with a nice try in the corner after spinning the ball through the back line.  But Sydney South were still ahead, 12-5.

The home team topped the visitors’ try with a brilliant move through several sets of hands ending in another corner post try: 17-5.

The last try of the game was more prosaic: after some hard play up the middle the forwards of South Australia were sucked in and found themselves short of players when Sydney South moved the ball.

Final score:  Sydney South 22—South Australia 5

That was a great day of rugby at different levels of the game, and all the matches were of interest to real rugby fans.

But the best thing of the day was watching the promise of the youngsters under the lights.

 See below for a gallery of mixed photos.

All photos by Lee Grant