The fourth game of the season for The Hague Barbarians (the clustered junior rugby team consisting of players from Wassenaar Warriors and Voorburgse Rugby Club) was played at Wageningen RC on Saturday 8th October against the CL WiWas.

The weathers gods smiled again as we had a very sunny day in a lovely sporting country location for the game.

In the first half The Barbarians stormed to a 0-38 lead with the action happening sometimes a little too fast that I couldn’t get down all of the details. Tries were scored by Andre Langlois, Jamie Luijkx, Tollo Wachira (2) and Matt McCoy (3). Our defence worked well again and there was a great defensive effort when the WiWa’s had a scrum on our 5 metre line. The Barbarians managing to turn the ball over and to get it back up the pitch to enable us to run in our 2nd try. The attacking by the Barbarians was working well with the more powerful players breaking tackles and getting over the gain line. Something that stood out ot me was that everytime we had a player burst through, we had support players with them that gave the option, if needed, to get the ball out for a score or for securing the ball before the rest of the team came up into position. The WiWa’s were not a walkover despite what the half time score said. Their scrums were solid and they pushed us hard – winning a couple of our put ins as well. The Barbarians were the more physical side though and the fitness of the team ultimately made the difference.

Halftime score: WiWa’s 0 – The Hague Barbarians 38

The Barbarians carried on scoring at the beginning of the 2nd half with Tijmen Pronk and Iason Plaisier scoring to bring the score to 0-50. As we experienced in the other matches, there is a rule for the competition that limits the scoring gap to 45 points. After a discussion with the referee, both sets of coaches agreed to stopping the official score at 0-45 but to carry on playing. For the rest of this report I’ll give the unofficial score. With the game won and the score locked the coaches decided that they could experiment a little and give players a chance to play in positions that they were unfamiliar with After 40 mins Tollo Wachira raced up the wing to bring the score to 0-55 but with the pressure off and the Barabrians playing a new structure the WiWas found their rugby mojo and were determined not to give up. They scored after 42 mins, and again 8 minutes later with the score now 12-55 after 50 minutes.

The game was losing structure with a lot of loose balls. The Barbarians took the next opportunity with Tijmen Pronk scoring again after supporting Matt McCoy as he broke through another tackle. The support runs paid off again shortly afterwards with Temelko Brown getting into a position to receive the ball and get over the line. With the score at 12-69 the WiWa’s had the last word, attacking well and getting over the line with a converted try bringing the final score to 19-69.

Final Score: WiWa’s 19 – The Hague Barbarians 69
Final recorded score: WiWa’s 0 – The Hague Barbarians 45

Match reporter
Stephen Brown

 

Posted in General, Juniors

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