Juniors defeat Delft to christen new pitch
Saturday 21st January, a gloriously sunny day, a brand new all weather pitch, a great turnout, friendly opposition, a good referee and a great team performance. What more could you ask for the beginning of the New Year? Turnout was good with 22 players available on the day. Delft supplied the referee and Delft and BSN shared side-line duties.
BSN Juniors warm-up in preparation for the 1st game of the year
The first try of the match was scored by BSN after only 2minutes when good forward action won the ball halfway into the Delft half.
Strong forward action wins the ball for BSN building the first try of the match
Good handling by the backs spun the ball down the line until it reached Vyvyan, who seeing his chance accelerated wide and flew down the wing, scoring in the corner to the cheers of his teammates and spectators.
Vyvyan ‘the pocket rocket’ sprints blisteringly down the wing leaving teammates and opponents alike struggling to keep up
With this inspiring start the half was dominated by BSN, with an encouraging team performance intermingled with exciting individual efforts, not least of which being the second try by Mika who broke through the Delft defence scoring in the same corner. A few minutes later Sam kicked a ball skilfully over the Delft defence from the 20 metre line and sprinted through the Delft line after the ball, which was now bouncing over the Delft line. The last 4 metres saw Sam completely airborne with a swallow dive worthy of an Olympic diver. Unfortunately the ball just rolled out of play centimetres before Sam grounded it, robbing us of what would have been a competitor for try of the season.
Stuart had another good kicking performance converting 5 tries in total
BSN cross the Delft line for the 5th and final try of the half
Three more BSN tries followed before a last minute try and conversion by Delft taking the half time score to Delft 7:31 BSN.
Juniors huddle for a team talk at half time
The second half started just like the first with a corner try at two and a half minutes by the BSN Captain. This was followed six minutes later by a try from Dennis, who displayed many powerful runs launched from the rear of the behind the scrum. As a spectator of BSN it is good to see Dennis back to his exciting best.
BSN no. 8 powers away from the scrum – the Dennis of old is back!
Solid teamwork with the forwards and backs working together saw another 3 BSN tries in the 2nd half by Seb, Sam and Williams. Despite BSN dominating the match Delft did not give in and scored a try at 19 minutes. Special mention must also go to the Delft winger, who (like a counterpart from HRC2 last year) made a brave attempt to tackle Williams at full tilt, leaving him dazed on the side-line. Happily after a few minutes he was OK, but unfortunately for Delft he was forced to spend the rest of the match as a spectator.
BSN winger powers towards the delft line in one of a number of bruising attacks
Stuart – bored with simply converting between the posts decides it is more of a challenge to aim for the crossbar
The final whistle blew with the score line at Delft 12:60 BSN and, as pointed out by the team manager with incite worthy of our head of statistics (Neville stato Conway), the highest score recorded by the Juniors on the new all weather pitch.
Victorious Juniors pose for post match photo with coaching and management team
Overall it was a great start to the New Year and the team look forward to next weekend and an eagerly anticipated return match with Oysters.
Game stats: courtesy Neville ‘stato’ Conway:
1st Half – Tries 1_Delft & 5_BSN, Conversions 1_Delft & 3_BSN
Half time score: Delft 7 : 31 BSN
2nd Half – Tries 1_Delft & 5_BSN, Conversions 0_Delft & 2_BSN
Full time score: Delft 12 : 60 BSN
Players:
Backs – Jay, Safwan, Arthur, Eduardo, Sam, Williams, Thomas, Vyvyan, Sebastien C, Sebastian CL, William
Forwards: Stuart, Mika, Kieran, Alex, Elliot, Hector, Sandy, Laurens, Dennis, Zhangir, Peter