Gosport & Fareham Vikings 55, Trojans 0
With sunshine and light winds the omens looked good for the Vikings first game - but not many of the players expected them to be quite so good.
The Vikings put in a true team performance to run in the clear winners by 11 tries to nil. What was great to see was that nearly all of the tries started with hard work by the forwards, securing the ball for the backs, who then put into practice all of their recent training. I don’t think we have seen such slick handling by the Vikings. I reckoned that the wingers got the ball more times in this game than in the whole of the last season.
The first half saw 6 tries; 3 from Ciaran and one each from Tom, George and a debut try by Oli. Ciaran and Tom benefited from Alec ripping the ball and taking the quick tap after the forwards had won a penalty at the scrummage. George expertly gathered a pass off of his toes to score and Oli’s try originated in a strong charge by Marcus breaking the Trojan’s line..
The second half started with the forwards again, with Harry stepping up and acting as scrum half and ending in a great try for Tommy. We then saw a more determined effort by Trojans which required some strong tackling by all of the Vikings. A huge try saving tackle by Harrison saw him a clear winner of the tackle of the match. Try number 8 was another debut, this time for Joe against his former team mates. Try 9 demonstrated what happens when a team switches off, even for a moment, and an alert George punished them for it with a quick tap and run to score another try. The last 2 tries fell to Oli and Ciaran after some exhibition rugby, with the ball passing through the hands of forwards and backs in a way that was a just reward for all of the coach’s efforts over the recent training sessions.
A great team performance by a great team. Well done all of you.
Viking of the Match – Marcus. Tackle of the match – Harrison. Opponent’s Man of the Match - Ciaran