Coyote Match Report For the HKU Sandy Bay Raiders

With twenty-three Raiders players injured or travelling it was a big effort from the club to get a crew of twenty men to So Kon Po 'The Field of Dreams' on a sunny Saturday to face the Tai Po Dragons.

With not one of our front rowers from last week available it was left to the three rookies in Jeff Chin, Carl Chambers and Martin “Mr Grumpy” Kibble to step-up and lead from the front. Adopting the theory that it takes a big hammer to drive a big nail we called on the Thor like creatures of Tom “Too Loose” Alcorn and Harrison “Hokey Cokey” Standish to complete our tight five engine room and with this the Raiders took to the pitch intending to stamp their authority up front.

Early tight heads were won as the dominance at scrum time and hard carries coming from the piggies handed a glut of field position and space to the backs to work with.

The Raiders jumped out to an early lead with a try to inside centre Jonathan ‘Catch me if you can’ Templeman (who had only just managed to get his shirt back on before kick-off). Will “I brought my own tee” Tope knocking over the conversion.

Fullback Sean ‘Red Sea’ Robertson was the next to create open space by ducking as the Tai Po centres both went high, colliding into each other, cracking skulls and knocking each other out, parting the way for him to dive under the posts, fly half Will ‘eat your heart out McKenzie’ Tope had plenty of time to decide which foot he would use for this conversion.

Unfortunately, the lineout lacked the effectiveness of the scrum, which was further compounded when Harrison couldn’t decide if he was Arthur or Martha and gave away two consecutive penalties for being unable to decide if he was in or out of the line.

Indecision began to compound as players started to tire, the forwards began to lose their attacking shape which resulted in our halfback-prop Andrew ‘I’ve got an English Passport’ Welling having a torrid time searching for runners from the base of the ruck.

Tai Po were making their own mistakes with the referee reaching to his pocket for a slice of cheese and with both sides tiring the game opened up and Tai Po made the running collecting a try.

Half time came, the group refocussed and field position saw Johnny ‘Still can’t get me’ Templeman going in for his second being too strong for a couple of ‘would be tacklers’, Will ‘Never Miss’ Tope again slotting the extras for a perfect set of three from three, from the tee.

Tai Po struck back twice as conditioning, or the lack of, began to tell but the Raiders managed to get themselves down the Tai Po end of the pitch again and a knock on saw a scrum set seven metres from the line.

An almighty shove from the Raiders 8 and the push over was on for all money until Harris seemingly refused to fall onto the ball for a try (surely try avoidance) and with that their half did what Harris should have done and dived on the ball with - the referee having no hesitation in awarding The Raiders a penalty try which saw the game iced at 28-17.

Some excellent performances from the Bay but a special call out to the defensive efforts from Johnny ‘I’m actually a seven’ Templeman, Paddy ‘O'Driscoll' Balfour, Pete ‘quick, a camera’ Fan and Chad ‘Is Good’ Arnold, as they made life tough for Tai Po when they had the ball.

Paddy, true to his nickname, continued his creative kicking, his chip to the opposition winger when the rest of the backline were screaming into space nearly rivalling his back-heel effort from last week.

So Kon Po nearly buried us again with two try scoring dives at the incorrect line, coupled with JJ’s amusing effort to try and roll out of the tackle into the in goal from fifteen metres out, a dropped pass on the short side with the line wide open and there were certainly more points available that we’ll look to capitalise on as we build into the season.

Man of the Match: Jonathan Templeman
Tries: Jonathan Templeman 2, Sean Robertson 1
Conversions: Will Tope 3
Penalty Try to the pack
Final Score: HKU Sandy Bay Raiders 28 – 17 Tai Po Dragons