A dogged performance brings the 2's their 2nd win by the narrowest of margins

Saturday 27th September saw a barebones EUCRFC 2nd XV take on Thames 1st XV away. EUCRFC knew, with only one super-sub, they would be in for a long, hard game.

Thames won the toss and opted to kick. The kick was taken but did not make the ten metre line so a scrum would officially start play. The forward pack would soon notice that there would be a lot of these throughout the day. The larger Thames pack made it very hard for EUCRFC to give their backs clean ball, but in true style Matt Thompson wriggled his way to the opposition try line on two consecutive occasions. One of which involved him crawling in for the try. Both tries were converted placing the score at 0-14. Thames struck back with a try, from a lucky bounce, and closed the gap to 5-14.

EUCRFC’s mercurial Fly half, Matt Thompson (or Dazza) countered the Thames try with another break and managed to pass to the effervescent loose head prop, Jack Hunt, who found himself in the right place at the right time, with great positioning for a try under the posts. A textbook conversion from Harry Barnes put the score at 5-21.

The Thames side were not ready to give up at this point and made the remainder of the first half theirs. They scored two tries with some good footwork from their back lines. The half time score was 15-21.

Tom Procel, EUCRFC’s spearhead captain, made the team aware that they would need to dig deep if they wanted to leave the Thames ground with a win.

EUCRFC pack’s fitness started to show as they began to provide a strong platform from their set pieces. The second half scoring was started by EUCRFC’s Dale Stalley with a well worked move. The score was now at 15-26. Thames fought back with two more tries to increase the pressure with a score of 25-26.

The last quarter of the game saw the supreme Ed Nickolson replace James Crouch due to injury. The prodigy Coach/Player that is David Barker managed to increase the EUCRFC lead with a Number 8 pick up to power hop over and score a converted try under the posts. The score was now 25-33.

Thames were not ready to give up as they continued their attack to the bitter end, managing to score a converted try.
The score now at 32-33, saw a tense final 5 minutes as Thames continued to try and score. Great defence from the EUCRFC team, including try saving tackles from Nick Moody and Lindsey Dobbin, managed to keep Thames from stealing the game. Final score 32-33.

A special mention for Louis Dix who put himself about making a number of big hits during the game. James Crouch in his first few games has really improved on last season and looks to be fitter and stronger and will be a key front row player. Alan Swales and George O’Grady gelled well in the line out.

A great win for the EUCRFC 2nd team even with a large number of changes to the starting 15 and many players carrying on even though injured. This squad is really starting to gain some momentum.

Ed