Ophir 2nd xv vs Cooke 3rds

Match report vs Cooke 3rd September 2016 Fortress Ophir!!!
After a solid vocal warm up the Ophir 2nd XV took to the pitch led by captain Paul Wilson, prepared to take on a large physical Cooke pack. A great receive and return from the abrasive Dave Lucas set the tone for the afternoon. Ophir were clearly in the mood to dominate. After some great forward play retaining the ball, creative out half James Milligan sold an outrageous dummy, and got some change, bursting through the Cooke defence leaving him one on one with the opposition fullback. Unselfishly he popped the ball to the galloping Stevie Hastings on a great support line who touched down unchallenged directly under the posts. James hit the conversion for a 7-0 lead after 5 mins. Ophir continued to dominate the break down, territory and possession through hard graft from the pack. It wasn't long before Stevie Hastings was on the score sheet again after a beautifully weighted chip over the top from scrum half karl Davis was gathered up and touched down over the cooke tryline ,once again converted by James Milligan. The next ten minutes it all went a bit wrong! Dave Lucas was yellow carded for being too good at the breakdown. Eight minutes later James Milligan looked sideways at the ref and got a deserved yellow card. Through all this (down to 13 at one point) the Ophir defence stood strong, resolute and unbreakable! Karl Davis even got on the scoresheet with both teams at 14 players each, with a classic snipe around the side of a scrum, a quick dummy and an easy set down. Tough conversion missed and half time Ophir led 19-0. The second half was a somnolent sequence of soporific torpor! (Well most of it)! The highlight was a great break from Dave Lucas who ran a try in from 40 yards showing a great turn of pace. Stevies Hastings was a bit tired so making an unintentional high tackle, got a quick yellow, and spent 10 minutes in the bin. Cooke attacked the Ophir line towards the end of the game but got nowhere except put down hard! The ref felt this was a little unfair so awarded a penalty try for Cooke penalising Ophir for tackling too well. Cooke could not break the solid defensive line but still came away with 7 points. Final score Ophir 26 - Cooke 7. Couldn't pick a man of the match. There were so many today. But for putting in 29 tackles and scoring 3 tries between them Stevie Hastings and Dave Lucas shared the honours! Well done 1-18. See you all at training on Tuesday. Next Saturday.... Two home games ... Massive!

two wingers were Chris Halfpenny and Craig Smith