McSorley's Match Report - Marauders vs PFS City RFC 19/01/2019 - by L.Rumble

Marauders crush City to continue winning ways

Fresh from a 41-0 mauling of the Typhoons, the Marauders were keen to step it up in the final match before the mid-season split, and step up they did, running in an unprecedented 11 tries to win 63-12.

Receiving kick off, the Marauders set about building their phase play. A few huge carries from Will Binnie, Dayton Riddle, “Dirty Mike” Coates and the Gang (Rodney Chen, Jasmeet Gujrat and Ed Gibson) paved the way for the backs to run free. Phase after phase the lads smashed it up, creating space for the backs to exploit at pace. The Plastic Free Seas City lads hadn’t smelt the ball and the Marauders were on the board in the corner. With a try 10 phases after kick off to Jason Chow. The scene for the mauling was set. Kick missed. 5-0.

Kick off received and the Gang got moving again, left, right, punching it up, metre after meter. Douglas “Captain America” Wolfson keen to get his hands on the ball. The Marauders were treating this like a training exercise. A few strong carries up the middle from the outstanding combination of JJ Bull and Rhys Pinna-Griffith and the forwards were once again on the ball. It started to become a competition to see who could take more carries and make more metres. Right, left, right, rinse repeat, try in the corner Jason Chow again. 10-0.

The Marauders were on a roll. Subs started rolling, scrum dominance was established and coach John “JB” Byrne had seen enough after the third and fourth try had been run in. He was bringing himself on. “Ed take a break” was the cry from the side-lines. On stepped J ”Prime Kieran Read” B. Scrum on half way, pick and pop was the call from the halfback. Coach had other ideas. Pick and go. And Go. And Go. 6 defenders beaten 20 metres made and more space out wide for a few more tries in the form of Rhys and the effervescent Rodney Chen. Half time 5/6 tries to 1, one or two successful conversions. Who counts kicks anyways…

The second half started with what would surely be a World Rugby try of the season contender. Lawrence Rumble fielding the kick off using a Zidane control with the boot, pick up and off load to JJ Bull, spots a half gap and puts ‘two try hero’ Tarleton Hepburn into space, gap attacked, defenders engaged and out the back door its flicked to none other than the young man JJ Bull himself. He didn’t need a second invitation to throw a defender 15 metres and gallop 60m pulling away from all support - wings, halfback and sundry. 15m short, slowing to a halt, the over the head flip to Ed Gibson at pace, step once, step twice, diving under the poles unopposed. The try was scored in shorter time than it took you to read this recollection. Conversion made. Score about 42-7.

Next up abysmal touch judge capabilities, ref calls play on, City score. A fair amount of touch judge bitching resulted in the official being removed. In doing so, becoming the first person to be declared unfit to run the side-line of a Community League One fixture.

This only served to motivate the Marauders to dominate further. Special mentions to Coatsey and Will Binnie for their barnstorming running and open play dominance as well as eventual man of the match Rodney Chen for an out and out show stopper of a performance.

A few more tries were run in from all over, Rhys grabbing his second in comical pick-pocket fashion over the line (“don’t go to Dublin they warned”), Jason completing his hat-trick, Tarleton grabbing a quick-fire double and JJ Bull expertly exploiting try avoidance.

End Score: 63-12 Victory.

Try Scorers
Rodney Chen (MOTM)
Rhys Pinna-Griffith (2)
Tarleton Hepburn (2)
Jason (3)
Lawrence Rumble
Ed Gibson