After Kalmar Castle we raced out to Kalmar rugby ground to prepare for a very important game. MRC were currently playing in the second division competition in Sweden and the top team at the end of the season would move up to 1st division. After wins against both Lugi (Lund) and Kalmar, MRC were looking pretty positive. Lund had lost both of their games, as had Trelleborg 2nd grade and Kalmar had won convincingly over Trelleborg (67-0) and then lost to MRC.
A win over Kalmar would almost guarantee top spot to MRC. The biggest issue was the timing and location. Many of the team had other commitments and the distance meant that MRC were down several players and only had three reserved.
So far I'd yet to get a game, but it looked like I should get a run in the second half of the, or maybe for 10-15 minutes at the end at least.
The game didn't start well for us. Kalmar came out strong and caught us disorganized and they broke through the lines scoring two quick tries (10-0 to Kalmar). One of the props then went down and I ran on for my first game, about 10 minutes in.
 |
| Me receiving the ball from a maul (although the soccer goal in the background makes it look like the wrong game...) |
 |
| The ball clears a ruck and MRC are on the attack |
MRC hit back and after a few scrums we managed to draw two penalties and kicked the game back to 10-6.
 |
| Preparing for a scrum - I'm on the far side |
 |
| Hit up |
 |
| My serious (as in seriously I can't breathe) face |
 |
| Penalty goal |
 |
| Clearing the ruck |
Unfortunately Kalmar managed to break away and score a try, leaving the half time score 17-6. We also had a couple more injuries so we needed all of our reserves.
We came out strong in the second half:
 |
| Me driving in |
 |
| Tackle |
We did well against their scrums - they brought in 3 different props, but we still won almost all of our scrums (I think there were two where the ball bounced forward into their scrum and they cleared it) and a couple of theirs.
 |
| Lineout |
 |
| Ball coming |
 |
| Nice tackle - I would have caught him eventually.... honest... |
 |
| I even managed to get a hook in... |
 |
| Driving the scrum |
 |
| And again |
 |
| And again - we had so many scrums this day |
Eventually our hard work paid off and we managed to score in the corner after an awesome little kick and some strong play, the score was now down to 1 point with 15minutes to play (17-16).
 |
| After my hit up |
 |
| Another scrum |
I found the Kalmar prop had a tendency to stand up in the scrum when under pressure and that meant that I often found myself going too far up - in one of the scrums I ended up lifting the prop off the ground and got warned by the ref. Eventually I managed to shake of the rust and when I got low I found that I could drive straight under them.
 |
| My hit up |
 |
| Going to ground and I managed to draw a penalty too |
Unfortunately for us, Kalmar had plenty of reserves left and with 10 minutes to go, they swapped on a few new players. Our guys tried hard but we couldn't compete with the fresh legs and Kalmar managed to get a score, taking the score to 24-16.
 |
| They did miss this throw in the lineout though |
We pushed back hard but in the end Kalmar ran out victors 24-16. It was a hard fought game and it was great to get a run on the field. I do miss my Onka's family, but the MRC guys are great and have made me feel really welcome.
This weekend we play Lugi in Malmö and the following week we play Trelleborg (I'll miss that as I'm playing Old Boys Rugby in Romania). We still have a chance of finishing top, but currently Kalmar are beating us on percentage. If Kalmar drop a game or we managed to get a few solid wins we might still make it.
No comments:
Post a Comment