A pouring wet day brought the men of Littlemore out to play – in their first full league fixture of the new season. Into the driving rain over Gosford’s pitches and clubhouse we headed, with several new faces in our team.

We made a quick start, catching Gosford cold and driving them into their 22. It was clear before the game that handling would be difficult, and indeed the ball sought to escape upon even the lightest of collisions. Nevertheless, we were able to cross the line first and early on through repeated phases – Darren Massey (flanker) dotting down. With both teams struggling to keep hold of the ball the match became quite an arm wrestle in the middle of the pitch. Gosford had the better of the line breaks early on and made the most of some sloppy Littlemore tackles. We pushed on and were rewarded with a try for our captain, Jason (lock).

Given the conditions, kicks were perilous to both attempt and catch, which worked both for and against us. A slightly loose goal line dropout was well caught by a Gosford forward in plenty of space, who managed to slice his way through our defence, putting Gosford in front. In the approach to half time, we again found ourselves close to our own try line with a defensive scrum. A good clearance kick found grass. The wet rugby ball confounded Gosford and wound its way into Littlemore hands. An excellent passage of supporting offloading play wound up with Seb (outside-centre) rounding the last defender near the twenty two and running in for the try with the ball never going to ground! Already a contender for try of the season!

Having gone into half time ahead, we were the ones who were caught cold at the start of the second half as Gosford scored 2 tries in quick succession. Handling started to become even looser with passes fumbling along the ground or flying over heads, rarely going to hand. The pitch started to seem very long and the match, well, very long as well. After a third Gosford try, running through a tired and split defence, we were able to regather. Running hard and directly, we made our way down the pitch, resulting in a 5m attacking scrum. Harrison (number 8) picked and went on the open side, holding off tacklers to score.

All in all, a promising display for Littlemore, collecting a well-earned try bonus point and showing there is a lot more to come as the squad gels over the season!

Final Score

Gosford 31 – 20 Littlemore

Man of the Match

Trevor and Harrison

Honourable Mentions

Mark, who filled in as a prop for us during the first half an hour of the game
The referee, who endearingly described himself in the pre-match chat as “qualified but not competent”