St Bernadettes v Gordano

Gordano went to St Bernadettes for their first game of the season with 15 players and showed great spirit, commitment and skills in losing narrowly after going ten points down early in the game. With players moving to new positions and two debutants in Leon Paul at full back and Sid Vining at tight head, the team took a while to get into their stride and on a beatiful day for running rugby produced two first half tries after the ball was moved through forwards and backs for first Ethan Ando and then James Hawkins to go in from distance. With Connor Adams to the fore well supported by Captain Kody Golding, and Ed Macromallis going forward Sharks made ground time and again. Turning around against the wind Macie King moved into fly half and triggered some great counter attacks by moving the ball wide. Some strong running from Bernadettes gave them field position and they scored a converted try to go 17-10 up. Flankers Jacob Clements and Finn Rowland were combative at the breakdown tackling strongly and turning over ball regularly. St Bernadettes brought on fresh legs and ran in a great team try despite excellent scrambling defence from Sharks to go 22-10 up with around ten minutes to go. Consistent pressure on the Bernadettes line meant that space was created on the right and great vision and communication from Aaron Southey led to him skipping past a defender to score and make it 22-15. Gordano looked dangerous and were hopeful of putting more pressure on but a break from Bernadettes from their own half led to one of their replacements going in in the right hand corner to put them out of sight at 27-15 with a couple of minutes to go. Gordano never gave up and Full back Leon beat several defenders from the 10m line to score and make the final score 27-20 to the home side. The performance from all 15 players showed real promise for the rest of the season.