Harbury 2s played Southam 2s in a highly competitive local derby, which was a closer game than the 45-8 score line suggests.

Harbury 2s played Southam 2s in a highly competitive local derby, which was a closer game than the 45-8 score line suggests.

The game was delayed at the start to allow Southam field a competitive 15, this was important for both teams as it has been evident recently that many Junior clubs are struggling to field sides causing fixtures to be cancelled. Harbury have not played for a month due to bad weather and cry offs from other sides.

The time was spent well by Harbury who did something called a warm up and went through some set piece plays!!
This was much needed as James Soper was called up to the 1s leaving Harbury short of a hooker.
Luckily there were endless volunteers wishing to step up to play there, however team manager, Pecker decided that it needed a bit of weight there so Dan Shinkwin was volunteered.

Southam started the game much more brightly with their Veteran Prop Forward and youthful openside making inroads into the Harbury defence, it looked as though they were going to be the ones to score first, but then the game was turned and Harbury never looked back.

Second Row Ben Swidryk made a monster hit on the aforementioned openside and turned the ball over in the tackle. The ball was quickly fed to Sam Reeves on the wing who cantered over to score from 80 yards which was Converted by Mark Finch.
This set the tone for the rest of the game, the forwards stopped any runs at source, not allowing Southam any space to operate in which gave the backs good ball to make ground
John Jo Cronin playing at fly half directed the game well and was constantly looking to counter attack. One move which put Charlie Gladden into a gap was well stopped by the Southam Fullback however the ball was quickly shipped to back row James Bardey who powered over from 10 yards, the try was again converted by Finch.

Harbury were now dominant in the set play and the front row of Roger Heydon, Ed Lines and Shinkwin took numerous scrums against the head, one of which ended up in a try for second row Ben Swidryk, where he showed a clean pair of heels to the winger and scored in the corner, again Finch added the conversion.

Half time 21-3 Harbury.

2nd Half saw the return from the Man from Down Under, Dan Bennett at scrum half, it took him a few minutes to acclimatise to Northern Hemisphere rugby and to learn the new rules at scrums. He now knows you can’t feed the ball at the scrum!
It didn’t take him long to show his class as a trademark snipe at a ruck put him in clear space and a lung bursting run to the posts resulted in a try from the halfway line, the conversion was added by Finch.
The rest of the half saw some brilliant play from Harbury where forwards and backs combined together to make major inroads into the Southam defence, good runs by James Hoggarth, Grant Collet and Dan Shinkwin set up scoring chances, however certain tries were missed with over enthusiastic play (being greedy!) Finch being a major culprit by not recognising the dulcet tones of a screaming Kiwi outside him when a try was certain for Michael Henderson, Mikey was obviously instantly forgiving for the oversight by Finch.

Shinkwin was rewarded with a typical barnstorming run leaving carnage in his wake, bodies strewn over the floor as he made his way subtly to the try line in his usual way. The try was converted by Finch.
Reeves scored a further try after Finch threw a no look over the shoulder pass to him, the crowd could not decide what was more amazing, the pass or the fact that Reevsy caught it and raced under the posts for a converted try.

The final score was 45-8 to Harbury and it was decision time for Man of The Match, with many brilliant performances it was going to be hard.

Finch was 100% with the boot scoring 7 from 7.
Lines and Heydon were dominant at the set piece.
Henderson and Bennett were elusive in their running and decision making.
Mathew Holloway turned over numerous ball at the breakdown and Reeves caught the ball, like I say it was going to be hard.

The final decision was that Dan Shinkwin be awarded Man of the Match for his tireless running from hooker and barnstorming runs.