What a thriller as South are edged out - just!

The Thriller (not in Manilla).

South welcomed league leaders Rugby Lions to Welford Road for this latest N3M game and the first of their “Autumn Internationals”. Some changes to South’s personnel were needed, as Sam Badham was ill, replaced by Jack Hague, while Dan Holmes took the No 14 shirt. Kris McFedries resumed at No 9 at the expense of Ricky Aley who joined fit again Mike March and Rod McNaughton on the bench.

The game started at a pace with Lions dominating in all areas especially the set pieces. South lost prop James Stapleford to a back injury as early as the 9th minute to be replaced by Roddy McNaughton. The Lions distribution and powerful running entertained a crowd of 350 plus as they completely dominated to build a 15 – 0 lead by the 30 minute mark. South had struggled to compete and gain any meaningful possession during that period. After a bout of handbags when South captain Luke Coltman and Lions prop Nick Adams saw yellow, South put together a number of phases of play to enable prop Mark Bayley to rumble over for a try routinely converted by Mark Lord. However, Rugby came back to score a converted try of their own to move the score to 22 – 7 at half time.

The second half started badly for South with Bayley unable to resume suffering from concussion. As South had used their front row replacement uncontested scrums were the order of the day with Mike March taking the field as Bayley’s replacement.
A Lions penalty (one of many) opened the scoring, but then came the South revival as Stu Bale took the scoring pass after continued pressure on the Rugby line. Again Lord converted.
Unfortunately, Coltman was rightly handed his second yellow card for taking down a lineout which was converted to red and South were down to fourteen men.
It didn’t stop South taking the game to Rugby and the Lions 10 Gollings should have seen red after a blatant cynical trip on Sam Greasley as he hacked on to the line with no defender in sight. The referee only awarded a yellow card to Gollings
Back came South and some lovely hands saw the ball moved quickly wide to Dan Holmes who outflanked the Rugby defence to score a great try. Lord converted with a fine kick to close the score to 21-25 and game on.
Not to be outdone Rugby dominated for the last period of the game as South defended like demons and kept out Rugby’s continued attacks, having to rely on the odd break out to threaten again.
A penalty kick awarded in the last two minutes saved Rugby’s blushes as they finished the game with a seven point winning margin.

All the South squad should be proud of their efforts in scoring three tries, stopping Rugby scoring four and taking a losing bonus point under considerable duress of being a man down and having to go to uncontested scrums. It’s a game we could have won and I’m sure everybody associated with South look forward to the return fixture at Webb Ellis Road with more than anticipation.

Ultimately the game was marred by some crass behaviour of some of Rugby's coaching staff. They should be appalled by the intimidation of both referee and her assessor as South pressurised their expensive side in the second half only to come up just short. A little more humility in victory was needed from such a high calibre coaching and player line up. If this is how the Lions react when they are involved in a close and competitive game – admittedly something of a rarity for them this season – then there is little hope for the traditional values associated with the game of Rugby that most of us cherish.
I wonder what William Webb Ellis would have thought!

South Team: Culpin, Holmes, Smith (Aley), Keeling, Greasley, Lord, McFedries, Bale C, Johnson, Miller, Hague, Bale S, Bayley (March), Coltman L, Stapleford (McNaughton).

Man of the Match: Stu Bale.

The comments above are my particular reflections of the game and not the clubs official line.