Ravens Escape With the “W” Ravens 10 Lomas 5: Report by Peter MacDonald
On a miserably cold, rainy day at Jericho on a spongy, wet pitch two of the best teams in the competition played to a standstill with the rugby gods intervening near the end to favour the home team on the 50th anniversary weekend of the club. Each team scored a single try and set out an equally strong defence leaving the pundits no wiser as to which may be the better squad. Perhaps a playoff rematch in the spring will answer that question.
The Ravens drew first blood at the 15 minute mark with centre Hamish Janes chasing down a short grubber from #10 Aaron McLelland, 7-0 Ravens. Otherwise, the half was a sequence of one team after the other camping near the opposition’s line and being held out by solid tackling. With poor footing on attack the advantage swung to the defenders. Josh Tweed, Janes, Joe Locke, Jack Carson, Tsugu Hirai and David O’Donoghue were prominent tacklers for the Ravens.
The second half was more of the same, only tougher conditions. Bodies were getting very cold… hello McLelland and Jack Carson in the backs… handling and lineout execution (but not for the Lomas whose lineout purred along well) became difficult, kick tennis (sometimes aimless) was on as the prospect of running back a kick seemed overwhelming to the catcher it appeared. But the Lomas got a grip on things starting at about the 55 minute mark. They kept it tight, generally in the forwards, and with shorter passes and direct running they put the Ravens under sustained pressure. As they drove centrally toward the Ravens line two quick long passes to the left then put the winger across the line in the corner with the difficult conversion missed, 7-5 Ravens.
Soon the Lomas were back at it with their forwards going down the left side of the pitch again towards the wettest ground with their direct running hard for the defenders to stop. As they approached the line again advantage was being played for offside when a second offside offence occurred generating a yellow card to the Raven offender and a penalty kick to the Lomas from close range in front of the posts. But the soft ground, the cold, maybe the moment and perhaps the rugby gods came into play and the kick missed to the right and the Ravens had a reprieve with about 10 minutes to go.
The Raven kicker restarted with a long 22 metre dropout which the receiver fortuitously, for the Ravens, knocked on. At the ensuing set the Ravens’ strong push gained them a penalty and the kick to touch set them up for a final stand in the Loma end. Eventually a penalty kick moved the score to 10-5 and the minutes slipped away toward the home team’s win.
How cold was it? Referee Shanda Assmus was shivering before the game started and near the end at a stoppage she needed an assistant referee to restart her watch as her fingers had stopped working, the writer’s Raynauds was kicking in making note taking a challenge and surely Aaron McLelland was thinking about two weeks previous at the US National touch rugby championships in sunny Phoenix.
Lock Conor O’Brien, the Lomas lineout crew and centres Kenny Saito and Doug Fraser stood out for me amongst many strong Loma performances. Grant Crowley’s ball running and the back row of Shenton, Locke and O’Donoghue leading the defence were notable for the Ravens.
The warmth of the clubhouse was a welcome relief. Looking back at the harsh conditions it may be a game the players will never forget or perhaps one they may want to quickly forget. Hopefully next week at James Bay and the following week at Klahanie for a make up game will bring gentler conditions.