Manor 3s raise the bar

Due to a small issue with our pitches the Manor 3’s home game v East London was moved to our friendly neighbours at Bancroft Rugby Club, who, despite their locker size-changing rooms do have lovely showers so thank you very much Bancroft RFC!
As we warmed up we noticed the difference between the two teams’ ages with no-one in the East London side looking older than 25 compared to the Manor side where the ages of Macer, Ross Reed, Werner and Riaan were probably more than whole of East London side combined!

The game kicked off and after a passage of play from the halfway line East London managed to squeeze through a gap somewhere and score under the posts which they converted. Manor 0-7 ELRFC. Unfortunately their over-the-top celebrations (‘whoop-whoop’-ing etc) woke up the Manor boys and I think there are a few ELRFC boys this week with very sore bodies after being absolutely slaughtered from there onwards but more about this later…

Manor hit back straight away after Riaan forced a turnover from the kick-off with crisp service from Tharbish to Brad, who fed a rampaging (inside centre) Mad Sean in midfield and after running over three defenders he managed to offload to hooker Ant Jordan who ran a very good support line to score under the posts which Brad converted. Manor 7-7 ELRFC. From the kick-off the Manor forwards made good yards but a penalty for ELRFC gave them field position and when the scrumhalf tried to take a quick tap after another penalty he ran into big Macer on purpose which led the over-eager ref to show Macer a very unlucky yellow card… With Manor down to 14 it looked like we were in for a tough time but it also seemed to have another wake-up-effect and after the forwards took the ball up several times deep into the ELRFC half (with Franny being very prominent), another great pass from Tharbish found Brad at flyhalf who decided to run over his opposite number and score under the posts which he also converted. Manor 14-7 ELRFC.

The next try came again after bulldozing forward play and several dominating scrums with the front row of Ross Reed, Ant Jordan and Paul Porter playing farm-farm by ploughing ELRFC backwards several yards every scrum. From another one of these scrums Franny sharply picked up from the back of the scrum to break blind and make several yards before off-loading to Tom Winky in support who in a 8-6-7-11 move passed the ball to Riaan who popped the ball to Nicky Morris on the wing at full speed and after bumping off a defender he lifted his arms over the tackle beautifully and gave it to Tom Winky who sprinted over in the corner. Great try. Manor 19-7 ELRFC. The rest of the half ended with an ELRFC penalty which they converted to end the half Manor 19-10 ELRFC.

From the kick-off of the second half it was all one-way traffic and Manor scored so quickly from hereonwards that I apologise in advance if I don’t get it all right... Tom Winky scored the first try after half-time with Ben Ward showing superb skill to catch a ball behind his back at full tilt and then Riaan breaking through to feed Tom Winky for the try under the posts. Another easy conversion for Brad made the score Manor 26-10 ELRFC. In no particular order the rest of the tries were scored firstly by Billy Morris who ran onto a beautiful skip 3 pass by Brad to race over in the corner. He also scored another try from close range with Werner feeding him another skip pass from a ruck (sorry Chris Hurry!). Lawrence Donaldson (who was superb on attack and defense all day long) then scored after Werner broke blind from another ruck and passed to Ant Jordan who in turn found Lawrence at full speed from where no-one was going to catch him. Tom Howell then scored a beaut of a try after gathering the ball on his own 22, side-stepping two defenders and racing down the touchline to dummy another two defenders and score.

From the kick off we nearly saw the try of the season and if someone recorded this next passage of play it would’ve hit 1million views on Youtube in no time plus win Samsung Try of the Month… ELRFC kicked off deep and with Riaan shouting ‘Riaan’s ball!’ and slipping over the ball found its way into our young second row Harold’s hands who set of on a trundle with Macer saying ‘take it up’, ‘run straight’ and then started sounding like a horse-racing commentator towards the end of the race as Harold eluded 6 tacklers, bumped off 2 more and ducked underneath a last tackler to have a clear last 15 yards to the try under the posts BUT…… then got pushed over by our own David Ridewood who wanted to help a tiring Harold over the line PLUS then helped himself to glory by taking the ball from Harold and stepping over the tryline right under the posts… Unlucky Harold, but what a run! (very reminiscent of Calvin ‘Bus Conductor’ Bradley’s run a few seasons ago v Campion).

All these tries took the final score to Manor 55-10 ELRFC. It was a typical old-school rugby lesson handed out with our forwards softening up their forwards by driving and gaining massive yards every time we had the ball – this gave the backs loads of quick, clean ball which we used very effectively.

It is hard to mention stand-out performances as everyone gave it their all but special mention must go to the whole forward pack who really stuck it to the ELRFC pack. Also a big mention must go to superman Tony Armstrong who completed a WHOLE game for the first time ever! Most of the tackles and turnovers were pure class and our scrums and lineouts were very effective. The old boys bullied us into an advantage and Tharbish, Brad, Ben Ward, the twins, Lawrence and Tom Howell took full advantage and ran them ragged. Paul Porter also dreamt about the win the night before and provided us with a celebratory 1.5liter champers afterwards! (Guys - Paul is smart, be like Paul…). Well done to all and must lastly say something about the great team spirit we have in the squad – let’s keep it going! A very hard task to award Man of the Match so reckon it will just be fair to have two players – Ben Ward for being outstanding in attack and defence all game long and Ant Jordan who probably played his best game ever for the Manor… Congrats gents!

I anyone from ELRFC read this by any chance – rugby is supposed to be a fun Saturday out – win or lose. The fight went out of your team soon as the cocky captain started shouting and swearing at your players and calling them useless c….s which was sad to see and hear. Hopefully someone sorts him out with a late tackle at training this week ;-)

Report by Werner Hefer