Novos blown away at Percy Park

Going into the game, Novos knew it wasn’t going to be an easy match up. High winds meant the kicking game wasn’t going to be much of an option, and that this match was always going to be ground out in the forwards.

After a slow warm up, the match got under way, and a typically blustery start from the Peoples Republic saw them concede early in the match. But the team quickly picked themselves up and woke up a bit, to put in a period of solid defensive work. However, under the pressure, discipline soon started to slip, with high tackles and the off side count creeping up, the ref was not a happy man, and a debateable “high” tackle from the Berkshire Brawler Jack Salt saw him seeing a yellow. Novos down to 14 men. For the next few minutes, Novos knuckled down and carried on with a good defensive line, until the balding beauty John Paul Addison decided to choke/high tackle (“Only a little bit”) another of the Pumas, resulting in novos second sin binning of the day. With Novos down to 13 men and a 6 man scrum, the pressure was mounting on the Peoples republic. With 13 men, the squad managed to front up and cut the penalties for a while as the Pumas used their strong runners to good effect to walk the ball up the pitch, finally managing to get themselves a scrum on the ‘vos 5 metre line. The 6 man scrum managed to hold for a little while against the full strength Pumas pack, until the slippy ground resulted in a collapsed scrum. Penalty try to Pumas to put them ahead 12-0.

With the sin bins finally over, the full strength novos put in the hard work and managed to pull together and work their way back up the pitch to the Pumas 5 metre line, with some great lines coming from the backs, along with solid rucking and carrying from the forwards. From the 5 metre line, the novos then used the hammer ball to great effect to get towards the try line, with Rob Murphy being the man to score the try, rounding out a solid period of forwards work. Conversion scored by Mike Baker making the score 12-7.

Roused by this, the People Republic once again went on the offensive, and after working up into the Pumas half, Christian Selkirk had an increasingly rare moment of brilliance, in an inspired chip and chase kick released the ever dangerous Nick 'shakespeare' Byrne on the wing, who beat his opposite number and full back to crash it over into the corner. Missed conversion, 12-12 at which it remained until the half.

The second half saw a few changes, but with Novos now playing into the wind, it was always going to be a difficult half. The Pumas, with the wind at their backs, came out fighting, and after repeated assaults on our defensive line, one of their strong runners managed to break through the line to put the Pumas ahead again. On the restart, Shaun O'Connelll managed to find himself in his favoured position of Centre in the back line, and go on a dancing 10 metre run that would put resident snake hips Oliver Dearden to shame, before an ill-thought kicking attempt resulted in a knock on, showing once again why forwards should never kick a ball. With the Pumas mounting the pressure, they managed to break through a tiring Novos defensive line a few times more to score a few more tries in the half. With 10 minutes remaining on the clock, our dear leader, Kim Jong Pratt, decided that the ‘vos needed something to inspire more aggression from the team, and perk up the play. And so, directly infront of the ref, our glorious leader pulls an RKO outta nowhere on an unsuspecting Park player. Scuffles ensue as tensions peak for both sides, and thanks to the silver tongue of our silver haired MOTM Oli Dearden, Pratt sees only a yellow for his wrestling prowess. Running down the clock, the 14 man novos managed to prevent any further tries through a monumental defensive effort, making the final score 31-12.
It was a tough match in tough conditions, and there was a lot of hard work from everyone in the team, and we’ll be looking to build on that as we head into what promises to be a hard-hitting match against Ponteland next week.

Guy Douglass