Match Report

Phoon troops assembled in various levels of sobriety following the Christmas party at Coyote's (thank God for late KO). A typical example: Grant looked like a battleship that had taken a few torpedoes below the waterline. He was listing hard to starboard and engine room belching acid. But joining our ranks was for the first time this campaign, our sponsor and Phoon old boy J.Orange - looking relatively perky and certainly pleased to be in uniform again.

Phoons took the field and immediately won our first scrum and lineout; and dominated possession in the opening exchanges. A disruptive run from Roy led to an opening try from Lockie. Things were looking good.

However, the first time Gai Wu got possession and threw it wide their breakaway "69" out-jinked everyone and scored a softie under the posts. Not so good.

Time for the forwards to turn it on. Waz briefed Sgt. Orange who went in briefly at scrum-half and bossed the pack, who immediately started an offensive pounding round the fringes of the ruck, and with drives inside off no.10. Significant yardage was gained - Tony, Chris Chau, Swatts, Nico, and co., indeed all the forwards put their bodies on the line.

Still, whenever Gai Wu got out wide (and especially to their dangermen "69" and "88") they were (I suppose) dangerous, but it was the relentless forward platform that set the tone for the rest of the match. And from outside their 22 allowed Grant to forget his pains and in a red mist drive through Gai Wu (and a few Phoon) players to score a truly remarkable individual try.

Your correspondent's recollection is then patchy but Gai Wu scored against the run of play. Then Andy P. ran from a quick tap inside our half through their pack and past the cover defense to keep us ahead. Again Gai Wu scored, but "Johnny" Coles grabbed a fine 3 points from the boot to keep us in front - but only just.

In the last 10 minutes at 24-22 we proceeded to give away 4 very kickable penalties, oh and their previous try had 2 conversion attempts (WTF?!), but somehow the cross-eyed Jap kicker missed the lot and we stayed clear to win. A fine victory which required some celebration.