The Hague Barbarians (the combined junior team from Wassenaar Warriors, WRC Te Werve and Voorburgse Rugby Club) played DIOK 2 on Saturday 12th March at the Wassenaar Warriors – one of our home grounds.

The DIOK team were lacking in numbers and could only field 14 players. In the spirit of the game both teams agreed that some of the Barbarians side would play for DIOK. Its to everyone’s credit that all of the players that played on the DIOK side, played as they would have for the Barbarians and played to win.

The Barbarians scored the first try after 2 mins. Matt McCoy running the ball wide after a scrum and touching down in the corner. The Conversion proved to be too tricky for Tijmen Pronk and sailed wide of the posts. Matt scored again 5 minutes later and once again after 15 mins in very similar moves. Tijmen was able to slot one of the conversions over and the score was 17-0 after 15 mins. Tijmen scored the next try himself after putting in a nice grubber kick on the DIOK 22 and gathering and touching down close to the posts. He managed to convert his own try bringing the score to 24-0 after 20 mins.

DIOK didn’t give up and put in a strong defensive effort but The Barbarians finished off the first half strongly with Bo Hoobroeckx scoring with a short distance drive in the corner. Tijmen was unable to convert and the half time score was The Hague Barbarians 29 – DIOK2 0. The Barbarians were playing well in the first half. There was good pressure at the rucks with The Barbarians turning over the ball multiple times, but there were a number of handling errors and knock ons.

The second half started well for The Barbarians with Tollo Wachira chasing a kick from our own half to collect and touch down in the corner again. Tijmen missed the conversion from a tight angle. 5 mins later Tollo scored again – gathering a very bouncy ball from a DIOK miss kick when they tried to clear their lines. Matt McCoy scored his fourth try of the game on the 10 min mark which was converted by Jesper Verbeek. Jesper scored himself after 14 mins but was unable to convert. The last try was scored by Raphael Gain-Prost after 19 mins, when a DIOK clearance kick 5m from the tryline hit him at very close range in the chest. He was able to gather the ball and score close to the posts. Tijmen easily converting the try bringing the score to 58-0.

As the game was already won by The Barbarians the coaches moved the kids around and put them in positions that they wouldn’t normally play at. The momentum changed and the game became a little scrappy.

Fulltime score: The Hague Barbarians 58 – DIOK2 0

All in all – this was a great score by The Barbarians. Plays that they learnt at training were put into the game and the team executed the game plan well. The forwards executed pods well and the backs played with a fluidity that we hadn’t seen for a while. The hardwork at training paid off and it was great to see the team win like this!

A week off for us next week with our next game is on the 26th March against RCW/Zaandijk at Voorburg Rugby Club.

Stephen Brown
Match reporter

Posted in General, Juniors

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