Watsons remain unbeaten with a fine win
The final score in the U16 Cup Final at BT Murrayfield on Wednesday night would tend to suggest that George Watson’ College had an easy stroll to their win over Edinburgh rivals Stewart’s Melville College, but it was a hard fought victory which saw them eventually stretch away to lift the Cup.
For the first 10 minutes or so of the match, Stew-Mel were easily the dominant side, pressurising the Watson’s defence and spending a fair amount of time inside their opponents 22.
However, they were held out with a combination of strong tackling and the odd error on their part.
The first points on the board came via a turn over in the Stew-Mel 22, immediately puting them on the defensive and eventually being overrun, Angus Hoffie going over for the try and 5-0 with 20 minutes played.
Straight from the restart, Watsons forced play back into the Stew-Mel half and, setting up an overlap on the right, gave Hoffie the chance to score his second down the line for 10-0 on the 25 minute mark and, this time, he added the extras for 12-0.
He then scored his hat-trick a few minutes later with another converted try, following another period of sustained possession by the Watsons pack.
Stew-Mel then enjoyed a short time with the ball and they made it work for them with a couple of penalties inside the opposition 22 which the tapped rather than kicked. A fine period of running and passing was finished off down the right with their No. 4 going over on the 30 minute mark. With the conversion, the score was now 19-7.
The final five minutes were again dominated by Watsons, but the half finished with an error and the score at 19-7.
The second half started very much as had the first, with Stew-Mel in the driving seat. This time around, however, reward came their way with two tries, one of which was converted, in the first seven minutes to draw level. The first of these was a fine solo effort up the middle from Joshua Grant who fought his way over the final few metres to score next to the posts. He then scored a second in the left corner, taking out the flag and initiating a discussion between the officials on the field.
But it was a short lived moment of glory as Watsons scored two quick tries in succession, following long stoppage in play to deal with what looked like a serious issue with one of the players who went down away from play. The medical staff were quickly on the scene to deal with the incident and play resumed with Watsons tries, the first of these being a fourth for Man-of-the-Match, Hoffie.
So, with 50 minutes played and the score at 33-19, it was still all to play for, but Watsons turned up the heat and a combination of fine attacking rugby, helped in no small way, by some poor Stew-Mel defence and handling – and maybe some concern for their team mate)Â they scored another five tries on the way to the final whistle and a 64-19 victory .
Images from the match will appear here over the next few days.
I’m utterly shocked by the reporter describing this hollow victory in sporting terms as Watson’s “romping away”. The poor Stewarts Melville kids were clearly shell-shocked by their friend’s serious injury (in still unexplained circumstances – will anyone be held to account?). The match should have been stopped anyway. But to glorify the score in this context is utterly disgusting reporting.
To describe this as a ‘hollow victory’ does take away from the ‘fact’ that Watsonians were clearly the better side for most of the match, other than either side of the break, so does no justice to their win. It is, of course, unfortunate, that a young lad had to be removed from the pitch under the circumstances and, sadly, once recovered it is possible (probable even) that he won’t play the sport he loves again. I understand from other sources that he is recovering, but is still seriously ill from the effects of his head injury – another case for weight, rather than age, categories as in New Zealand, perhaps? I do however take your point and have modified accordingly. Watsonians, however – even according to Stewart’s Melville staff – were never in with a chance of losing so, I believe, deserve to be congratulated, as their Under 16 side also saw a young man removed from the pitch, on a stretcher, due to an unknown – at the time – cause. Stewart’s Melville coaching staff were probably well within their rights to pull the plug, but they chose not to. Unfortunately, I suffered an ‘error of publishing’ as the article was ready to go the next morning, but I ‘drafted’ rather than ‘published’, so the circumstances were unknown and may have been fairly benign it that time, but like all humans are capable of, made a slight error and published in a rush without further proof reading.
Comments are closed.