Old Yardleians RFC: Club News
King Tiger
Tue, 17 Mar 2015 12:00
Harris buys the beer!
The Club's Elderly gentlemen entertained Pershore 2nds on Saturday in their latest W&H Merit League 2 clash. Having made the journey down to Wyre Piddle earlier on in the season and salvaging a 19 all draw a tough old afternoon was on the cards, especially as up until recently Pershore were thought to be top of Merit 2 or close to it.
As usual our much younger opponents took to the field early as befitting their youthful demeanour running through copious amounts of lineout drills and backs moves whilst the Vandals assembled in the relative warmth of the changing room at their usual leisurely pace and drifting on to the park with a few minutes before kick off.
This week's official was Aston's Old Eds Jaghir Singh, obviously not getting the usual amount of home games these days over at Perry Common ;o)
Despite some early Pershore pressure it was the silky running skills of Max Gimson that opened the scoring, and whilst Ralph's conversion attempt failed to trouble the uprights it was followed soon after by our second try of the afternoon scored by Roger Lazenby.
Again the conversion failed to bisect the uprights which spurred Pershore on and following pressure inside our twenty two, referee Singh decided they were worthy of a penalty which they duly converted cutting our lead to 10-3.
Now in terms of military hardware most sides turn up with the equivalent of a Sherman, mobile but lightly armoured whereas we rack up with a 71 ton King Tiger awfully slow but impossible to stop and this was clearly demonstrated when Luke Harris went over for his eighth try of the season thanks to a rolling maul from our 150 stone pack to increase our lead to 15-3, but again the conversion went begging.
Pershore struck next with a well worked but unconverted try to bring them to within a try at 15-8.
But the Vandals lead was increased again following another close range driving maul with tank commander Harris continuing his rich if short range vein of form to bludgeon his way over for his second try of the afternoon 20-8, conversion missed.
Pershore obviously not here to make up the numbers again struck back shortly afterwards with a converted try of their own to bring the score back to within a try at 20-15.
But not for long as soon afterwards youngster Ben Honey went over, and with Ralph finally managing to slot the extras the Vandals lead had increased to 27-15. This was improved further when in an almost carbon copy of the first two Harris went over for his third of the day, converted again by Ralph 34-15.
The Vandals now fully in their stride increased their lead again through one of their handful of under 40's when winger Andy Pearce went over for an unconverted score followed soon after by Honey's second of the afternoon, converted by Ralph to put the Vandals out of sight at 46-15.
But the final try of the afternoon went to the visitors, who played with great determination throughout.
Special mention must go to Dave Vickers who propped for eighty minutes for the visitors and keeping the scrums contested.
Final score 46-20, and young Master Harris went off to buy his jug!