2’s give a fantastic performance - in miserable conditions!

Despite a few of the players not arriving until kick off or after, Neil “Hammer” Gray, led his team with some excellent game play.

Ophir led for most of the game, with ALL the tries being ‘assisted’ by fantastic breaks by the captain, “hammering’ his way through the Academy line and offloading to the eventual try scorer each time.

Unfortunately, despite some great line-out steels, generally ‘set play’ didn’t go the way of the Ophir forwards/pack, with Academy having the edge in scrums and driving mauls off line outs. However, in tackling, open play support (in general) and attacking runs, the 2’s were a joy to watch, having a far more dynamic attack. Unfortunately with the bad weather, occasional handling errors meant that more tries weren’t scored.

Unluckily, due to a couple of successful driving mauls previously, the referee awarded a ‘penalty try’, which gave the Academy side the opportunity to draw level. They then scored again, and despite some other valiant attacks, and losing a player to a yellow, the side went down 22-17.

Try scorers: Jonny Murphy under the posts, Jamie McCafferty, and Karl Davis.

Alex Mason & coach Stuarty had to leave the field early due to their health/weather (it was Baltic, with fears of hypothermia).

Even in the words of the referee “the best side DIDN’T win!”

Post match attendance at Academy’s club house was good, once again, showing that as a club we are moving in the right direction!

Kevin Bartlett