Entertaining game despite the blustery conditions

City received the kick off with the breeze at their backs and immediately made an impact with Zach breaking tackles before out sprinting the defence to score. Both sides then worked hard, sizing each other out, going through the phases and trying to create openings around the fringes and out wide.

Men’s Own responded with some strong driving runs and City were caught off-side at a ruck. The Men’s Own captain, Alex took a quick tap and surged over the try line to score.

Lee, James and Tyler competed well in loose with Bailey and Aiden tackling hard City won a loose ball and Jordan made a clean break from the ensuing maul to score City’s second try. This was closely followed by a score from Jack who found space after sidestepping the back row cover and the opposition fly half.

Some good work by Michael in the loose to win the ball gave Zach the opportunity to make another clean brake to score and Fabien made the conversion leaving the score 22 to 5 at half time.

City worked the ball out wide and all the backs linking well and created space for Mitchell to speed down the wing to score. Men’s Own responded well with some string drives and after a number of phases of play drove the ball over the line to score. Further pressure resulted in another Men’s Own score, again by their captain who grounded the ball despite being well tackled.

This was Men’s Own purple patch and only some strong tackling by Harry, Jordan, Darius and Aiden as well as some strong mauling and turnovers by James and Harry prevented Men’s Own turning their possession into further points.

Darius was next on the score sheet following a strong run and a number of broken tackles. The try was converted from in front of the posts by Eddie.

Men’s Own responded with some more powerful carries by their front row and mauling to drive the ball over for their fourth try of the game. Clayton, Jake, Alec, Bailey and Harry made some big tackles to keep Men’s Own at bay. With their confidence growing Men’s Own applied more pressure, especially in the set scrum and were unlucky to be penalised for driving City of the ball. From the resultant penalty Connor passed to Alec who broke through the covering tackles to score under the posts.

In a game where City fielded all it available squad and gave extended game time to those players still developing their skills, it was good to see the level of skills, passion and commitment so high. It is also worth recognising the improvement show by Men’s Own whose squad are developing well and have a number of talented players.