2. The Rats have come out of their hole
Warringah have been in the lower half of the Magners Shute Shield club competition in Sydney for a long time but my local team is on the rise in 2014.
Nicknamed The Green Rats after the Rats of Tobruk they have been more like drover’s’ dogs in the forwards this year and frequent flyers in the backs.
The pack cannot match some opponents in size and is not always noted for its technical skills, but it can compete with the best of them in its work ethic and team play. And with players like skipper/hooker Luke Holmes and opensider Boyd Killingworth (healthy at last) they can scrap for the last morsel of ball—like rats.
Behind them they have their most influential player, Josh Holmes, at scrum half, plus ex-Oz Sevens’ players Hamish Angus (flyhalf) and Michael Adams (outside centre). They also have fast, elusive wingers in Sireli Tagicakibau and Brad Dixon, and at fullback is Dave Feltscheer, one of the best back three players in Sydney not involved in Super Rugby .
Coached by ex-Rats Haig Sare (Force) and Michael Lipman (England and Rebels) Warringah have often been too short of good players in their first grade side, and the rest of the club, to have decent depth—and they have been short of money too.
The coaches are shy of using their bench in first grade which is not a good look, but they should be confident of using more players on match day. Their results in lower grades are decent enough to get them to fifth in the club competition now; so there has to be some good players coming through.
After putting away West Harbour, Southern Districts, Parramatta and Eastern Suburbs they had to confront the perennial benchmark, Sydney University, in Round 5 on Saturday.
Although the young Uni team had more territory in the first half the Rats shocked them with their brilliant breakout rugby to score three tries and led at oranges 21-13.
They scored their fourth try soon after the break to get a good lead but they knew that the Students would come back later and they did.
The Uni Borg machine went into action and they scored a try in the last few minutes of the game to get to 30-31. The Rats tried to keep the ball down in Uni’s half after the restart, but the visitors were too good and they were awarded a dodgy penalty in a kickable position on the bell.
It hit the post, to the joyful screams of the Rat Park faithful, and Warringah got their fifth bonus win of the season—out of five.
Feltscheer spoke after the game about the Rats’ ambitions:
We knew this week and next would show the competition whether we are contenders or pretenders and with today’s gutsy effort, I think we showed we are here to win.
Next week? They play arch-enemies Manly—be there.
