Tournament Day 2

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The final rugby day of the tour was another cracker with not a cloud in the sky as we started the wake up rounds at 7:30. Despite the early night it was just as difficult as ever to get them up and going - I think they’ll sleep for a few days solid when they finally get home on Tuesday morning. Shaved lines in eyebrows seemed to be the fashion this morning - not to mention a couple of modifications to hairstyles that had magically happened overnight - must be the leprechauns sneaking around I think.

We rounded them up and onto the bus by 9 for the short journey to the grounds. The list of medication required continues to shrink and I think that by the time we get them all home they’ll be healthy again. The boys elected to play in their black tops again and were soon warming up in the warm Irish sun. They seemed a little flat again this morning - difficult to get them very enthused - but that may have been because the first game looked like being a relatively easy run.

Middleton RFC- the host club - were the first opponents this morning - they had had a pretty poor day on Saturday, losing all their games by quite big margins. The first kick off went straight to Jordan who stormed his way back up the field to bring the ball back to 10m inside their half. The ball was lost forward in a subsequent tackle and a scrum down saw the ball go to Middleton for the first time. A big tackle caused a turn over to us from the ruck, the ball went through 2 pairs of hands before making it back to Jordan who stormed the rest of the way to the line for the first try. 5-0 after 2 minutes.

From the restart the ball went through the full back line ended up with Justin who zigged and zagged his way up the sideline only to be brought down just short of the line. The ball was quickly out from the ruck again and the forwards set up a platform for Matt to cruise over for the second try. 10-0 after 4 minutes.Play see-sawed back and forth for the rest of the half with both teams making small mistakes and causing stop-start rugby. Just before half time continuous pressure from our side saw the gaps starting to open and quick backline hands put Collins in the clear - 15-0 at the break.

The kick off for the second half did not go 10m so Middleton elected to take a scrum on half way. From there they kicked deep into our half where Nathan was waiting - he took the ball and accelerated back through their lines and we were one again on the attack. Storming runs from Jarrod put pressure on their back line but small mistakes continued to trouble our boys. Middleton capitalised on these and half way through the second half the scored right beside the posts after a good forward attack. The restart saw Greg, with the ball in hand, charging through their lines again, creating the platform for the backs and their quick hands to get the ball wide to Henry who went over in the corner. Matt Travers was up next and carved through the backline like a knife through butter to make the score 25-0 at the final whistle. A good performance but not one that really tested the boys too much.

The second match of the day was against Clevedon RFC who had travelled over on the ferry with us. They were up for a very big game and from the kick off showed they were going to play a very physical game up front. We just weren’t ready for the onslaught and weak tackling and defensive holes left them the room to move and score after 5 minutes. From there they defended like crazy and continued to apply pressure to all aspects of the game. Exiles slowly managed to exert some dominance in the match but we were let down by simple mistakes - handling errors, dropped balls, forward passes etc. Every time we managed to get some momentum going, it was stopped by an error and so it was still 5-0 down at half time.

Despite some stern words at the break, we saw more and more of the same in the second half. Messy play from us - caused by the pressure from the opposition - coupled with their very physical style of play meant that we never managed to get the game going. We had some good attacking opportunities at times but didn’t make the most of them and never really got into the game. Time slowly wound down and at the final whistle the score was still the same - our first loss of the tournament and one that cost us. Three teams ended on the same points and so it came down to tries scored - unfortunately the other two teams had scored more than us and we would have needed another 5 tries from our games to go through to the final. This meant we were relegated to the plate - and the boys were absolutely gutted! To have come so close and to have let ourselves get out muscled by Clevedon was not a nice way to go out.

But, we got their heads up again and went off to play the final two matches in the plate round. The boys changed into their white strip for the last two matches - no question about who was the best dressed team at the tournament in any age group!
We were first matched against Middleton RFC again - the weaker team from this morning. The game was very much a rerun of the first round with our boys proving to be too dominant for the Middleton side. Josh had a blinder of a game playing at number 8 with numerous storming runs through the field. He was rewarded with 2 tries for his efforts - very well deserved points on both occasions. Jordan was also as dominant as he had been in the morning game, carving up the defence time after time and putting Zac over for a try. Ryan’s tactical kicking was spot on - setting up one of Josh’s tries and confusing the opposition time and time again. Pieter crossed the line for his first try of the tour; Cesar made some massive tackles both at centre and at scrum half and showed, once again, his versatility in the back line. A defensive slip on our behalf saw Middleton get a consolation try just before full time but at the final whistle we had won 20-5.

The second game was against Middleton College who we had played on Saturday. They were the stronger of the two Middleton sides and did put a lot more pressure on our team from the kickoff. Good backline hands (where were those in the Clevedon game?) and quick ball from Sam Bullock put Jarrod into space early on and he crossed the line for the first try of the game. Our boys went back to sleep a bit at this point and the rest of the half was messy and disjointed - score still 5-0 at half time. The second half got off to a much better start with most of them paying attention at least! Jordan was again in dominant form and crossed the try line for his second try of the day. We conceeded a soft try to the college from poor defence (half asleep again) before Jarrod again found space - or more correctly forced some space - and crossed for his second of the game. Our final try came from good solid forward play allowing Sam Bullock to make a dart from the scrum half position and score the final points of the tournament, the tour and the season. Exiles 20-Middleton College 5.

So - it wasn’t really where we would have liked to end up - but at the end of the day that’s the nature of sport. For the record, Clevedon went into the final and got convincingly beaten 35-0 by Heathfield and Waldron - our first victory from yesterday. Who knows what might have happened if we’d got to the final - but we didn’t - and the rest, as they say, is history!

We had the plate presentation - medals for the boys and a trophy to take home - before it was back on the bus once again and back to Cobh for the clean-up and pack up before heading home tomorrow. The boys were not really all that concerned about where we ended up - they were gutted when we lost - but by the time we’d played two more games and had two more wins, they were feeling a lot better. The overall tour record was 9 games, 7 wins and 2 losses - which is impressive by anyone’s standards. They have learnt a lot about the standard of rugby and the different styles that people play which is exactly the reason for coming on a trip like this. They can see where they need to improve and how they can become a better team overall.

Also on the positive side we played 9 hard games in 8 days, in 4 nations, and have come away without an injury or damage to any of the 25 boys on tour. The number of comments we have received - everywhere we go - in shops, hotels, restaurants and at rugby grounds, about how polite the boys are, how good their standard of rugby is, how well disciplined and behaved they are both on and off the field - has been amazing. All 25 have been true ambassadors on this tour and you should all be extremely proud of them and how they will be remembered by the people they have met over the last week.

Tonight it’s a final dinner out together for everyone as a celebration of the tour and its successes. Tomorrow its onto the bus for the last time, a farewell to Alec and Aer Lingus to Heathrow then Emirates to Dubai. We should be able to sneak one more short blog entry in before we get home and then the scribe can take the rest of the week off!!

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