McSorley's Match Report - Raiders vs Looney Brothers 12/01/2019 - by T Scott

By TScott

After a good turnout by Raiders at training on Thursday, the scene was set for a fine day of rugby at Kings Park. With both Raiders and Marauders playing at the same times on opposite pitches as the curtain-raiser to Prems and Vikings the Raiders team were fired up to put the Kowloon Brothers to the sword.

Certainly the first 4 minutes was well executed with Raiders dominating possession and territory but no points to show. A lapse in Raiders back line defence yielded Kowloon’s first converted try at 5 minutes and was a wake-up call for Raiders. Raiders struck back 2minutes later with the forwards setting the platform and outside centre Owen Pescod crossing over under the posts relatively untouched after a well executed back-line move off first phase from 30m out.

Kowloon scored another unconverted try at 14mins with another defensive lapse with Raiders returning again with halfback Sean Robertson scoring off the back of ruck close to the line at 21mins.

Owen Pescod scored another 30m try again under the posts with some nifty footwork running through the Kowloon backline at 23mins, and it seemed like Raiders were beginning gain the ascendancy with score 21-17 to Raiders.

At 31mins Kowloon struck back again with an unconverted try giving Kowloon the lead 21-23. At 34mins Raiders unfortunately received a red card and were suddenly down to 14men for the reminder of the game with Coach Ken and Skip JJ giving the team some stern words about discipline and defence at halftime.

1 minute into the 2nd half Kowloon made a break off a kickoff with some more poor defence by Raiders. The Kowloon back ran 50m down the side line to nearly score in the corner. Tscott attempted his “best ball and all” rugby league tackle taking the Kowloon player out, but the referee deemed it was a high tackle and awarded a penalty try and gave TScott “the cheese” with 10mins in the bin.

With 34 mins to go and Raiders down to 13men and Kowloon now leading 21-28, the Raiders began to dig deep and grind out the forward plays with Karl Chambers scoring a try at the 40 minute mark. At 48 minutes Kowloon scored another converted try keeping Kowloon in the lead 27-31.

Another 12 minutes passed with no score by either team and each team trading blows and possession in the midfield.

At 60minutes Raiders won a scrum inside their own half, and executed a perfect backline move in midfield with Paddy Balfour and Owen Pescod sending Tscott through a gap to score in the corner from 60m out. Tscott retired to the sideline (having blown a gasket), and with the try unconverted Raiders edged ahead 32-31 with 10 minutes to go.

For the next 5 minutes Kowloon attacked Raider’s try-line with brilliant scrambling defence by Raiders to hold Kowloon at bay.

With 5 minutes to go Raiders had the lineout throw with the lineout 5m from their own line. The lineout was brilliantly executed with youngster Conner Schmidt taking the ball cleanly from Tony Falso’s accurate throw, and a clearing kick to follow. Kowloon caught the kick from 40m out and were looking to counter-attack but a brilliant chase by centre JWrafter gave him an awesome intercept with 60m to run to the try line. Jwrafter showed great pace with a blistering 50m dash and unloaded to the supporting winger PBudd who was pulled down 5m out from the line.

Raiders were awarded a penalty for a Kowloon ruck infringement and the quick-thinking Jack Hodgson took a quick tap and scored a try to extend the Raiders lead to 38-31.

Raiders maintained possession and territory for last 5minutes with James “Pony” Stevenson held up over the line at the full time whistle.

It was a high scoring game with Raiders scoring 6 tries & 4 conversions and Kowloon scoring 5 tries & 3 conversions. Man of the Match was Owen Pescod.

Overall another good win by Raiders to grind it out with only 13-14 men on the field in the second half, but still some things to work on; mainly defence and maintaining possession.

Next week Raiders play Tigers at “the Rock” (Shek Kip Mei) and are looking for another win after a narrow 19-14 win over Tigers in December.