Match Reports – Lindfield Away

Man of the Day: Scotty Lewis.

The veteran played two games, for 3s and 4s picked up a try in fours and never took a step backward in defence or attack. Excellent work mate, and great to see you on the paddock giving it socks.

Josh Ward was a close second.

1st Grade
Brothers 53 Lindfield NSW 7

Brothers turned up expecting a hard contest from a team sitting mid table which in the first round had the cleaners put through them by Brothers.
What more motivation would they need one must ask. Well the answer is a lot more.
They started well but like the first round once Brothers scored a few early points the intensity went out of the contest and Brothers pretty much dominated.

It was still one of the better team performances this year with the pigs providing a better platform which resulted in better quality ball to a set of backs keen on running from most parts of the paddock.
As is often the case in these games, it is easy to overlook the defensive effort.
Across the park it was quality particularly as the game went on, the ref found lots apparently wrong with the Brothers discipline and gave Lindfield a steady diet of penalties.

Nine great tries were scored in all; a terrific pass from Waddie to Bailes to score, great forward drive for Jono to score, good forward drives leading to a wide ball to Joel to score, a Vinnie snipe off the back of some good forward drives to score, Joel an intercept try, a third try to Joel (not a bad step there mate!) off a great pass from Waddie, a great forward’s try (in the open) to Lawrence off an impressive interchange of passing between Will (the happy hooker) and Tucs, a terrific side line run by Waddie beating three or four hapless defenders and finally Joel putting his fellow winger Bailes away for his second of the day.
Add four conversions getting Brothers to 53.
Good to see Joey and John Nichols back and keen to have a run as subs after a workout in the Stockdale.
Welcome back to Borgie from his European vacation.
It also should be noted that the scrum was more than a handful for Lindfield (just ask the ref who asked them to depower….).

A good effort all round against a team that kept trying and who did have injury issues.

Refs points to Vinnie (3) and Matt (2). Coaches points Lawrence (3), Tucs (2) and Blackie (1).

Off to Barden Ridge for the catch up game against Oatley on Wednesday night and then Oatley again at home on Saturday.
These two games will give the boys a better impression of where they stand leading into the business end of the comp.

2nd Grade

Brothers 52 – Lindfield 0

An excellent win for the Stockdale Boys..

Lindfield must have been wondering what was going on with Joey and Johnny Nichols lining up in the front row.

As it happens, the forwards dominated this match to such a ridiculous extent that the backs had a field day.

One of those backs remarked after the game “Our forwards were so dominant I could have played sitting in a deck chair reading the paper!”.

It was nice to see former Club President and Club stalwart Scotty James roll back the years to when he was a rampaging Ben Tameifuna style prolific try scoring prop (which was never), and pick up three tries.

That’s probably doubled his entire tally over his Brothers career.

Also nice to see a very strong Colts influence to mix it with the more grizzled veterans, with Josh Ward, Stu Raines, Dunc Raines all featuring prominently.

Tries to
Scotty 3
Dunc Raines 2
Hansie 2
Stu 1
Kit 1

Coach Points:
Josh Ward: 3
Stu Raines: 2
Duncan Raines: 1

Colts

Brothers 17 – 14 Lindfield

Well, this was one of the best games of rugby you’re likely to see in a long time.

Excellent quality play, combined with the fitness and speed you don’t see in the higher grades, and certainly not in the lower grades!

A massive committed defensive effort in the first half from Lindfield kept Brothers trailing at half time.

The word at the half time break was patience…. and straight away you could see it work.

Colts went out in the second half and continued to dominate possession through massively gutsy work from the likes of Gatesy, Josh Ward, Sam and Charlie.

But this time hey had more intent in the clean out and more direction in the back play.

It was touch and go right up to the last few minutes with Brothers facing a four point deficit.

That was until Toma came on to the pitch.

After hearing of alleged Hosni Mubarak sympathizers in the Lindfield ranks the riled up front rower took the ball outside the 22 and coasted through the Lindfield defense like he had spiders on him, to score the winning try.

It was a sensational finish to the game, and one richly deserved as the better team ended up with the win.

A finals place is no longer possible, which is a shame as on this form, nobody would bet against this side.

Coach Points:
Toma 3
Gatesy 2
Luke 1

Tries
Arthur got one, and also, there was THAT try from Toma.

Third Grade

Brothers 0 – 39 Lindfield

Tough day out for the boys, came up against a really decent Lindfield back line, and with most of the boys backing up, it was a tough ask.

The attitude was right, but the energy levels weren’t able to compensate.

Hopefully, there’ll be a few faces back next week, and there’ll be a fresh third grade side.

One bright point is that if we can get Pati fit, then he’ll do some serious damage!

Coach Points:
Scotty Lewis: 3
Slutty: 2
Pati: 1

Fourth Grade
Brothers 19 – 38 Lindfield

After what was one of the worst first half showing from this side in a long time, the boys decided to pick up their game in the second half and made a bloody good game of it.

We scored three tries in the second half and looked the better team like we all know they can be.

If we had started the game like that it might have been over at half time, but the other way around.

Once we got a few patterns going, and got decent momentum, then we looked dangerous…. but defense did let us down a little.

Coach Points:
Scotty Lewis: 3
Slutty: 2
Eddie: 1

Tries:
Nicky got one.
Tommy C got one before nicking his ankle..
And Scotty Lewis picked up one too.