Coyote Match Report For the HKU Sandy Bay Raiders

Illness, work, travel and some inconsequential game of little note, involving two countries that only half the team care about, kicking off at the same time, saw a tight knit squad of Raiders, short on numbers but big on heart fronting at Happy Valley to take on the Mavericks.

We had a disjointed warm up with last week’s rookie front rowers Jeffrey “Big” Chin and Carl “Secret” Chambers getting called up to the Vikings bench before turning out for us. While a few players electing to play for a different team in behavior that can only be described as heinous, will be dealt with appropriately at a court in due course.

Regardless the team took the pitch ready to take on the top of the league. We quickly learned that last week’s scrum dominance would not be easily repeated (seems a couple of Thor like creatures were missing from our engine room). Regardless the side began to settle into their attack structures and while the shape looked good our timing was off seeing too many balls spilled and turned over.

The Mavericks were employing the Irish choke tackle to force mauls when our carriers came in too high and in one collapsed maul Martin Kibble “and Bits” suffered a friendly fire shot to the kidneys that saw him needing a quick breather.

Jasmeet “Betrothed” Singh was next to visit the physio having suffered a corked thigh and when Greg “I feel like my head is coming off” Scott went on and came back off, all but Matt “Mrs” Jones and Arturo “The” Sims had taken the pitch in the first fifteen minutes of the match.

Valley seemed to have all the ball and only some desperate defence from Christian Matthews, Pete Budd, Dave Benskin and Stracka was stopping the score from ticking over but eventually the penalty came and Valley opened their account. Budd in particular making some last gasp try savers.

The Raiders counter punched and their forward pod structure started to make some inroads with Carl “ito’s Way” Chambers screaming in to space in some of the finest ‘tip’ running we’ve seen this year.

Stracka was putting on the hits and Matt Jones not wanting to be outdone entered the fray, some huge runs from Matty had the Valley defence terrorised. Dave “Smiley” Benskin’s back was giving him trouble but it was back into the fray for him as Paddy “Mr Fixit” Balfour rotated around the backline filling roles with aplomb as needed – just the three positions for Paddy this week.

Valley’s opening try came after a better scrum by the Raiders eight managed to deliver clean ball on their own five metre line, however Christian “Will Genia” Matthews failed to notice that ‘Gareth Davies’ was warming up for Sunday’s WC semifinal as the Valley nine engineered an intercept and score.

Halftime came and went and unfortunately it was Valley striking first both with a try and penalty but the Raiders settled, got more direct in their running and held the ball for a period before Peter “This is my good side” Fan set sail down the left touchline and was too powerful before crashing over in the corner. Paddy “Dead eye” Balfour slotting the conversion, some people say the ball slipped under the cross bar but that isn’t what is in the scorebook.

After a few more strong runs, unfortunately Matt Jones suffered a recurrence of his groin injury, rest up Jonesy, fingers crossed we see you back for the back end of the year, forcing a backline re-shuffle.

Christian “Boris Johnson” Matthews was our reserve back as Jonesy returned to the sideline but with him off visiting the lavatories, rookie prop Jeff “Play me Anywhere” Chin stepped into the breach on the left wing until Bo Jo’s blonde mop returned.

More strong tight running from the Raiders pack enabled Pete “Who’s Charlie?” Budd to break down touch but the side were unable to capitalise. The waves of runners continued and we finally unleashed Owen “Red Beard” Pescod down the right side for a score, the conversion missed but the difference was less than a try at 16-12 with two minutes on the clock.

The Raiders pack got to work again but unfortunately the depleted bench had left too many tired bodies on the pitch and a few simple passes got spilled creating the opening for a final score by Valley with their kicker making the conversion. Final score 23-12 with the Raiders fighting valiantly but not able to take the match this time.

Both sides got together to watch the world cup semifinal after and the Raiders came good in the post-match dominating the boat race.

As a coach I’m incredibly proud of the efforts of the team on the pitch, that was a tough day at the office with depleted numbers and we were awfully close to taking that game against the competition leaders.

MoM - Pete Budd
(special mention to Dan "Best" Budd for keeping the water bottles filled, thank you mate)
DoD – Christian “Call of Nature” Matthews (Jeff prefers to wear 1 rather than 11, thank you very much)
Tries – Pete Fan, Owen Pescod
Conversion – Paddy Balfour
Final Score – HKU Sandy Bay Raiders 12 – 23 Valley Mavericks