Fortress Fengate falls to the Flying Fish!

South travelled to Peterborough in this latest round of National 3 Midlands Division rugby. Josh McLaurin returned after injury to partner Sam Badham at lock, while Dan Robson and Jordan Curtis started. Nick Childs moved to inside centre to replace the unavailable Connor Smith while Karl Truijens, Stu Bale and Dom Green formed the forward orientated bench.

Although Peterborough had the better of the opening exchanges, South scored first through Josh McLaurin after a sweeping attacking move into the left hand corner. Mark Lord converted with a confident strike.
Peterborough responded with some strong runs from Lithuanian wing Balcunius. From one of those surges Jordan Curtis was yellow carded in a desperate attempt to defend. From the resultant penalty Low reduced South’s lead. Unperturbed South responded with some fine attacking play stringing together some good phases of play with McLaurin making the running and Lord crossing the line in support. His conversion failed narrowly.
Back came the home side with a try by Beall converted by Low to take the half time score to 10-12 in South’s favour.

Overall the half was marked by an increasing number of mistakes from both sides and some interesting decisions from the young referee who was continually advised by the home captain. Unfortunately that was to continue until the final whistle
Equally unfortunate Chris Mark had to leave the field with concussion to be replaced by Stu Bale with McLaurin moving into the back row.

The second half started badly for South as Loades scored an unconverted try from a poorly defended line out to take Peterborough into the lead. A missed penalty from the home side was a let off, until captain Mike March was yellow carded for persistent offside as the home pressure began to tell. Home No 8 Hartwell scored in that period with Low adding the extras to move Peterborough into a 22-12 lead.
On the hour South seemed to get their second wind and put the home side under increasing pressure. Nick Griffin had a number of elusive runs from deep being unlucky not to score when dragged down only inches short. It was all South, but opportunities went begging through mistakes in supporting the ball carrier. From a South scrum McLaurin got over, but failed to ground the ball to the referees satisfaction and the chance was gone. Karl Truijens replaced Dan Robson on the hour. South then put together a dynamic rolling maul and pushed the home defence backwards at a great rate of knots to be awarded a penalty try converted by Lord to close the gap. The home side responded with a penalty by Low to take the score 25-19 in Peterborough’s favour with only minutes left.
South had now to run out of defence in a last gasp attempt to salvage a victory. The ball was swung to the right where Mike March made the running, carried on by Nick Childs to give speedster Matt Fisher some room to move. He duly obliged by running around the aforementioned Balcunius beating the cover to go in under the posts for an incredible score. Lord converted to win the game as the referee immediately blew the whistle for “no side” and what seemed an improbable South victory.

It wasn’t the best display from South as they failed to gain a forward platform throughout the game, too many first up tackles were missed and generally they seemed under par for most of the game. However, they stuck to the task and were rewarded with another four try bonus point win at a difficult venue. The vociferous home crowd, including the VP diners, were stunned and the larger than normal South faithful rejoiced and went home happy in victory, however narrow!.

Team: Griffin, Daffern, Fisher, Childs, Curtis, Lord, McFedries, Bale C, March©, Mark (Bale S), Badham S, McLaurin, Stapleford, Badham M, Robson (Truijens)

Unused replacement: Green D.

Man of the Match: Matt Fisher for taking the game by the scruff of the neck and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.