Old Friends Haileyburians do the double over Law

The Law hosted Old Haileyburians for the first time last Saturday with the first and second team both at home against the pre season opposition.

The Law had suffered a narrow defeat to the Old boys earlier in the season and knew that they possessed a real threat out wide, sadly despite this knowledge the Law were fairly abject in the first half, creating little in attack and conceding 3 wide scores from their talented back three in defense. There was little to shout about at half time, the only sniff of joy the Law had had was when an intercept from Iain Pearce saw the ball chucked wide to Tom Brewer who along with an unsuspecting Louis Dall'occo conspired to butcher the chance for the try.

The second half brought in 3 subbed players and a real rejuvenated Law performance. Sam Brewer had the midas touch in the first 2 minutes of the half, sending the kickoff into coffin corner without the winger getting a hand on it before bouncing out for a 5 metre lineout. The lineout was not straight and the Law had a scrum 5 yards out. The Law pack turned their fortunes round from the first half boosted by their replacements and held firm on their own attacking ball where they had previously faltered. This platform allowed Sam Brewer to crash through off of a penguin pop to complete the score started by his kick off. The perfect start to the come back was followed up with reignited running from the Law and strong tactical kicking making sure the game was being played in Old H's half. Midway through the second half Tom Maclean had a moment of magic, with an overlap on outside him in open play the scrum half declined to pass and opted to chip the defense spotting an opportunity. The kick appeared to be covered but the devilish bounce of the egg found its way into Penguin's flippers and he slid over the line for his first try of the afternoon.

The Law then demonstrated possibly their best defensive phase of the season with 10 minutes of concerted territory and pressure for Old H's not leading to a score or penalty. The Law successfully rebuffed and turned over the Old boys finally sussing their threats out wide. The Law continued to hustle and were once again rampaging down the field this time in the form of loosehead prop Joe Maycock who made a blistering break. This field possession gave the Law the prefect platform to attack from and with the number of hard runners outside waiting Maclean used their decoy to snipe around the ruck on the tryline and score another try. This was converted out wide by Tom Jones to bring the scores level to bring the scores level in what seemed an incredibly unlikely turnaround after the first half. With a quarter of an our to go the Law had some key moments to take the lead but sadly missed them all with an errant penalty kick, a blundered offload and off target lineout, however it was clear there was the opportunity to take the game. The Law found themselves with 75 minutes played putting pressure on an Old H's scrum on their own line. The ball was won by the Old boy's but they were behind their own goal line, surely the law could exert pressure here. Sadly the reserve ten for the opposition pulled a miracle ball from his bag of tricks and through a wide miss pass to a winger in space behind his own posts the winger set off on a mazey run through the open back field making a key off load to put his wing partner through in space to complete the pitch length try. It was an exasperating score to concede, not least because of some very close to being forward passes that went unquestioned. It had been a game of two halves up to that point but it did seem like the type of game that would take some brilliance to finish it, unfortunately that brilliance came from Old Haileyburians. The Law battled in the final minutes to rescue the draw but were unable to do so and had to make do with a losing bonus point which whilst was surprising given the first half performance was again a bitter pill to swallow. The Law have somewhat developed into the plucky losers attempting comebacks but not quite succeeding. This needs to change if the Law are to climb into the top half of the table.