Saturday 4th September 2010 was a special day in the history of Grosvenor RFC as the club was fielding a 4th XV for the first time in probably 20 years. The day was also notable due to the inclusion of 6 new faces in the starting line up and 2 more on the bench. These included Jarlath Wollam and Curtis Herron in the front row, Karl Finlay and Phil Lyle in the back row and Jamie Cunningham and David Montgomery in the centre. The subs included Jordan Kennedy and Stevie.
Following a minutes silence for an Ophir member who died last year the game got under way. The Blenders got off to a period of possession and territory but never looked like troubling the Ophir line until Marc Brown kicked a successful penalty and then took a quick tap penalty, looked at his options and chose the wrong one before slipping the ball out of the tackle to JLB who coasted over from easily a yard for the opening score. Conversion missed. Grosvenor continued to dominate but unfortunately we lost Lyle to a head injury and he was replaced by BIG Jon Montgomery returning after a lengthy recovery from a knee injury, welcome back Jon.
Below is an interview with club coach Andrew Gibson at the Randalstown tournament:
[youtube Twfyoe_LG5Y]
The Blenders continued to dominate and were further rewarded by a score from the aforementioned BIG Jon Montgomery with the conversion missed. Unfortunately the Blenders decided that the game was now over and took the foot off the peddle somewhat and allowed Ophir, also marking their first league appearance, some territory and the penalties started to go against us. Fortunately the Ophir kicker only managed to convert one leaving the half time score 13-3.
Messers Hughes and Morris took to the field to advise the team on all matters tactical, positional and psychological at half time, but knowing nothing about any of these things simply told the Blenders to ‘keep it up’ and ‘get stuck in’.
The 2nd half started with a similar pattern as the first with Ophir struggling to gain any momentum and the Blenders starting to dominate all facets of play. This domination started to turn into points and Marty Gault and Smut added further tries to secure the victory. The Blenders now started to relax with the game secure and Ross Jackson scored a sensational try, picking the ball up inside his own 22 and just running and running and stumbling and lumbering all the way to the opposition line without a finger landed on him. Then came the coup de gras, the piece de resistence, a great team try with the ball through hands saw Davey Baird scorch in untouched to leave the final score at 37-3 to mark a truly impressive start to the league campaign for the Blenders. Tougher tests lie ahead starting with Civil Service next Saturday.
Special thanks and well done must go to all our debutantes, who all acquitted themselves very well in all facets of the game. Our discipline was all very impressive as a more experienced Ophir side started to niggle away at us as the score got higher. Smut and Ross Jackson also get a mention for playing out of position but man of the match for the first ever game of the Blenders is Marty Gault for his all round hard edge topped off with a fine try.
