RUGBY

National ‘B’ Division
St Andrew’s Secondary vs St Joseph’s Institution
Monday, 9 April 2007 at the Old Police Academy

Story by Mr Yee Teck Peng. Thanks Mr Yee! Additional comment on the game by an anonymous Red Sports reader. Thanks, dude! Picture by Jerome Teo, a student photographer from St Andrew’s. Thanks Jerome!

St Andrew’s Secondary beat SJI 15-6 this afternoon in a semi-final game to advance into the final. The half time score was 0-6 in SJI’s favour. Saints will now meet their biggest rivals, ACS(I), who beat Pioneer Secondary 36-3 in the other semi-final. Saints will be looking to wipe out the memory of their 5-8 loss to ACS(I) during the quarter-final round.

Story by Mr Yee:

SAINTS (the original and only one) beat St Joseph 15 (1 try, 1 penalty try, 1 penalty and 1 conversion) to 6 ( 2 penalties) (PENALTY TRY – because of the defending team’s misconduct near their goal area, the referee awards a PENALTY TRY under the post, to the attacking team. In this case, we were attacking at the far end on the right hand side, very near the goal area. I am not sure what the infringement was, but the referee raised his hand and went under the cross bar and awarded a try.)

The ground condition was ‘heavy going’ – wet, muddy and slippery. This made handling and catching difficult.

SJI kicked-off.

Funny, it was the ‘same kind of kick’ that Saints did when we played against ACS I last week. So back to the middle of the field for a scrum.

Eleven minutes into the game, SJI were awarded a penalty, it was quite far away. The SJI kicker kicked well and was on target.

SCORE:  Saints 0   SJI 3

5 minutes after this, Saints were awarded a penalty ‘in front’ of the post. It was an easy kick to goal. However the ball hit the left post and bounced left of it. I thought the kicker was in too much of a hurry – like place the ball on the tee and kicked.

SJI were awarded another penalty. Again it was converted.

SCORE : Saints 0  SJI  6

Generally SJI were better in the rucking (ruck – a loose scrum with the ball on the ground). SJI fly-half was very nippy. Twice he broke through and was stopped only by our full back. First half was evenly matched.

HALF-TIME:  Saints 0  SJI  6

When play resumed, Saints were very aggressive and pinned SJI near their goal line on the far right side. It was at this time, the referee awarded the Saints a penalty try. The kicker took his time. He converted it.

SCORE: Saints 7  SJI  6

Not long after, Saints were awarded a penalty. It was converted.

SCORE: Saints 10  SJI 6

It was still anybody’s game. There was not much time left. A try (5 points) by SJI would have ‘killed’ Saints. Then came the break through for the Saints. There were lots of ‘bodies’ lying on the ground and SAINTS SCORED THE WINNING TRY. It was not converted.

SCORE : Saints 15  SJI  6

Saints were now in the driver’s seat. SJI had to score twice to beat us. That was the score at the final whistle.

Once again Saints were poor in the own line-out. We lost a few of our own ‘throw-ins.’

It was a mediocre performance by Saints. They had to toil hard to win this match.

Comments by anonymous:

Saints were down by 6-0 in the early first half because of 2 penalties converted by SJI’s no.10. Saints then scored a try (penalty try) which was converted by Robert Lim. Robert also converted a penalty for saints later. In the second half, Saints scored the winning try through Rico Ong in the last 5 minutes of the game to make the scoreline 15-6.The most wasteful scoring opportunity was from a break made by saints’ no.6(flanker) who passed the ball to saints’ Anthony Utama(prop) who later failed to give an inside pass back to saints’ no.6 to score the try. What I feel that won saints their game was their high percentage turnover rate capitalising on SJI’s mistakes. The hard-running SJI no.8 who was a great threat to most of the teams was not able to run off the base of the scrums as saints’ flankers were always quick to tackle him.

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It takes one…two…three…four…five SJI boys to bring Saints’ prop Andrew Chua down. © Chris Leow

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