Jamie Jenner

Southwold 13 – 33 Hammersmith And Fulham

Wold’s Young Guns Battle Hard But Lose Out In Tough Cup Encounter

With Southwold concentrating on maintaining their league status after promotion to London 2 North East last season, this was an opportunity to rest a few players and give some youngsters their first taste of first team rugby, and there was no shame in their performance in this intermediate vase encounter with their London counterparts.

The first fifteen minutes saw both teams playing open rugby with plenty of ball in hand, Hammersmith having the advantage of a huge wind behind then blowing straight down the pitch.

Sammy Harmer
Sammy Harmer

Wold battled their way up the pitch repeatedly whereas Hammersmith were able to ease that pressure repeatedly by kicking long with the aid of the wind.

The first score went to the visitors following a scrum and the ball went out wide to the right  and then came right back across the field to the left leaving a clear overlap for the visitors to score in the left corner and the conversion was good.

The score remained at 0 – 7 until just before half time when the big Hammersmith Hooker broke the Wold defence just left of the posts by brute power and strength and the lead doubled.

The second half started and Wold now had the wind advantage but Hammersmith scored under the Wold posts within thirty seconds of the restart, with a breakaway right up the middle, which was a huge blow and in a way psychologically it put the game safe at 0 – 21.



Four minutes later Charles Buckley on his debut slotted a penalty for Wold and it did spark a bit of a Wold revival as they kept the ball well and kept the visitors under pressure but to no avail and against the run of play it was Hammersmith who scored next.

A penalty just within the wold half was kicked to the corner and from the lineout the visitors simply drove over for a great forwards try and with the conversion good Wold then trailed by 3 – 28 with less than twenty minutes remaining.

Jonny Walker

It did spark another Wold period of dominance as first young Sam Casbolt went  over  for his debut try wide on the left and then Sammy Harmer also went over collecting the ball from Phillip Carlstroem who had made a fine break before being tackled almost on the line, but even with both kicks missed the score came back to a more healthy looking 13 – 28 and the visitors were rattled.

They would have been even more rattled if a great set move from a lineout which saw SammyHarmer go over again, had resulted in another try, but it was to be denied correctly by the ref for a forward pass from James Hall to Sammy Harmer.

That was to be Wold’s last real chance as with less than ten minutes on the clock Hammersmith clawed their way up towards the Wold line and they eventually had a scrum five yards out and again scored a great forwards try, from a scrum pushover and that is how it remained at 13 – 33 until the final whistle.

There was no shame in Wold’s loss and for the youngsters it gained them great experience for the future.

MOM Johnny Walker with a great game at second row driving continually at the opposition with ball in hand.

All pictures courtesy Linda Cayley

www.southwoldrugby.club


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