Mariners score a double victory
Saturday 10th April
Lymington Mariners 17 – 5 Sandown and Shanklin Gents
Lymington Mariners 15 – 0 Kingston Vets
On a day better suited for relaxing on the beach Lymington Mariners travelled to the Sandown and Shanklin rugby club on the Isle of Wight to participate in an improvised three team tournament. Having double booked their opposition both Lymington and Kingston turned up with teams to play Sandown. It was agreed that each team would play each other once but with the games cut to just 40 minutes long.
Mariners and Sandown played the opening match. The first half was a tentative affair with both teams testing each other’s defense but with little success. Early on Sandown gave a penalty away and Jamie Bolwell slotted the ball between the posts to take a three point lead. Despite some excellent positional kicking by fly-half Justin Bloomfield and a number of foraging runs by the irrepressible Tim Hinman Mariners failed to cross the Sandown line.
The second half saw the game open up with 20 points scored in it’s 20 minutes of play. Lymington’s pack started to dominate proceedings particularly in the line out where hooker Owen Cavell repeatedly found the towering Dom Ellis. Five minutes in and with a Mariner scrum on the half way line the ball was spun out to centre Jamie Bolwell who stepped inside his man, jinked through the covering tackles, left the full back stranded and crossed the line for a tremendous try under the posts. He also kicked the conversion to take his tally and Lymington’s lead to ten points.
Sandown refused to roll over and continued to test the Mariner’s defensive line. Then, under pressure and with a scrum deep inside their own territory, Mariners scored their decisive second try to put the result beyond doubt. Full back John McGuffin received the ball and with just a narrow blind side to work with carved his way through the Sandown line taking the ball deep into their territory, then dragging the full back into the tackle popped the ball inside to centre Nick Bubb who crossed the line to take the score to 17-0. With only a couple of minutes to play and the Mariner line relaxing a Sandown winger touched down in the corner to make the final score 17-5.
The second match of the round robin tournament saw Sandown run over the Kingston vets 47-0 as their youthful backs repeatedly broke through the more senior Kingston line.
In the final match, having sat in the sun for the best part of an hour, a slightly complacent Mariners team were up against a Kingston side determined to salvage some pride. This led to a very messy first half with lots of mistakes being made by both sides. However early pressure by Lymington led to a penalty that Jamie Bolwell again converted to take the lead.
Kingston then drove deep into Mariner territory and won a scrum around the 22 metre line. However, hooker Owen Cavell, as the team has come to expect, took the ball against the head when most needed. Scrum-half Joe Rodway popped the ball out to flanker Stuart Thomas who made a darting run through the Kingston line, ran 75 yards up field then sublimely dummied the covering full back to score between the posts. Jamie Bolwell again took the two points and Mariners went 10-0 up.
Kingston continued to keep their heads up and applied decent pressure on the Lymington line only to be thwarted by superb Mariner defensive play. Mariners made two more testing breaks, the first involving nearly all their backs as they handled the ball with precision and style only for John McGuffin to be denied a score in the corner. Then the mercurial John West at flanker led the final charge of the half, again releasing the backs but to no avail.
The second half started much like the first with both sides making mistakes and the referee having to make good use of his whistle. Mariners did manage to string some phases together which led to a scrum in opposition territory. John McGuffin received the ball, switched play down the blind side and having set the ruck saw the ball released to Stuart Thomas who bludgeoned his way through the opposition defense to score his second try of the game with numerous Kingston players clinging to him.
The only other notable move of the second half was by debutant Juan Herrera on the wing who collected a kick deep in his own half before setting off on a dazzling 50 yard sprint to return the ball with interest and show his promise and potential to be another valuable member of the Mariner squad.
The game was finally called off 10 minutes early as a frustrated and beaten Kingston side started to display behaviour not fitting for the rugby pitch. However, Sandown and Shanklin showed themselves to be great hosts for the day and made Mariner’s first away trip a day to remember.
Man of the match(es) was awarded to Jamie Bolwell who has trained hard to provide Mariners with a solution to it’s goal kicking problems. but it was a close call with Stuart Thomas again putting in a fantastic performance, scoring two tries one of which will not be forgotten for a very long time.
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