Camberley U15 vs Wimbledon U15

Notes from the sideline from roving reporter Neil Dethick

In glorious playing conditions, Cambo U15s assembled at Watchetts for the second of our Quins cup matches. Having beaten Old Wimbledon Warriors with the last kick of the match in a nail biting encounter the previous week, all the coaches were hoping that this time, for once, things would not be so nerve shredding. Alas, as the following commentary will demonstrate, this was not to be the case.

The team had a number of injury-related absentees with captain Rhys, wing Alex and lock Will both unavailable. It was encouraging therefore to see Josh step in at scrum half and Nick and Harrison both promoted to the bench. Coach Jackson’s pre-match briefing focused on not giving away penalties at the breakdown (as happened last week) and being physical, confident and attritional right from the start.

With stand-in skipper Joel at the helm, the game kicked off and immediately you sensed that this was yet again to be a close contest between two well-matched teams. With the Cambo pack (for the first time ever!) beginning to find their voice, we perhaps had a slight edge in the scrums and lineouts where Harry B was impeccable as always. Cambo were not even put off by a one-man pitch invasion by the Wimbledon touch judge who appeared to believe that rugby was a non-contact sport!

It was therefore a little disappointing when Wimbledon were able to draw first blood by brushing off several of our tackles to crash over for the opening (unconverted) try. However, Cambo struck back quickly when a high tackle led to the ever reliable Ollie slotting over a penalty in front of the posts to make it 5 – 3.

The action was frenetic. The penalty count for both sides was increasing and Cambo were guilty of giving away possession way too easily at the breakdown by a) not getting to the breakdown quickly enough, b) not clearing out the opposition and c) running away from the support. Coach Jackson was noisily pointing this out every 20 seconds or so, whilst Coach Bray quietly despaired, wrung his hands and cussed every 2 seconds or so. We MUST get better at this aspect!

Anyway, with half time approaching and Cambo dominating territory, Bailey was fed a quick pass from Josh and running an excellent line at speed, was able to smash over for our first try. Converted by Ollie, it was 10 – 10 at the break with all to play for.

The second half started in the same vein. Cambo playing the game into opponents half but tamely coughing up possession at every ruck. The turnover count was ridiculously in favour of Wimbledon and we were just not getting the message.

More positively, John at centre had a great match with hard running and even harder tackling. Looks like a natural and is making the number 12 jersey his own. Harrison was immense – a bundle of snarling energy, physicality and determination. Joel, as usual, made big carries and Gethin was immaculate with the boot. After one too many high tackles, Wimbledon had a man sin-binned which meant uncontested scrums - a shame as our front row of Harry J, Dex and Adam were monstering their opponents.

Our physicality and ‘in your face’ approach was beginning to grind down Wimbledon who never really looked like troubling our line in the second half. Our territorial dominance eventually paid dividends with Bailey again unstoppable from close range. Ollie converted making it 17 – 10 with not long to go.

But again, it was if we wanted to make things hard from ourselves. Time and again we were turned over at the ruck, a punt in our own 22 managed to lose us ground and Nick was unluckily yellow carded trying to spoil a quickly taken Wimbledon penalty.

With the clock having gone red, yet another penalty gave Wimbledon the chance to go for a try from the resulting line-out deep in the Cambo 22. A collective groan went up from the home supporters. Please God no, let’s not lose, or even draw the match now. The disappointment would be crushing, Sunday dinner would have been a sullen, morose affair and the exhilarating emotions from last week’s victory would fall away as sharply as a Tory party approval rating.

But no! We were not to be denied! As the Wimbledon number 8 charged for the line, who else but Bailey, aided by several colleagues was able to dump him into touch. The final whistle went and we had won! Again! A roar went up from the team, absolute scenes erupted on the pitch and for the second week in succession, joyous celebrations ensued.

As for man of the match, it was an easy choice really. Not just for his two tries but for his attitude, his will to win and his intimidation of the opposition, Bailey was outstanding.

But, we can’t get carried away with the two wins. Whilst we were physical and attritional as demanded by Coach Jackson, our breakdown play this week was terrible. Better teams will put us to the sword unless we drastically improve this aspect. Training will be focused on this over the next couple of weeks - you have been warned!

But for now, we’ll take the wins and enjoy the moment.

By the way, I guess the town of Wimbledon must hate us.