The University of York Rugby Union Football Club

Huddersfield 1st vs. York 2nd

March 3rd, 2010 by Reporter_2nd

University of Huddersfield Men’s 1^st XV: 3 – University of York Men’s 2^nd XV: 40

This side were full of confidence from their last win against Sunderland, and despite having not played for two weeks, Johnson had stepped up to the mark in training and successfully hit every ruck in the fast moving unopposed drill! In fact however it was reaching the highest point a motorway goes to in the UK on the way over that was one of the few highlights of the day (363 metres I have been reliably informed by team tour guides Bummer & Dark Ash). From the whistle York were given a flavour of things to come: Morty executed a perfect grubber kick to the backs and despite T-Bag collecting the ball a good foot over the 10 metre line, the 2nd XV were pinged by the rather over-weight, slightly homosexual referee who would be better suited to the sex offenders register than the rugby pitch. Indeed some 32 penalties were awarded against York that day of which no more than 5 or 6 were genuine and many totally fictitious – it is only thanks to York’s total domination of territory that the score line was not a lot closer.

The referee was powerless however to penalise York when they were running with ball in hand, and the Huddersfield defence seemed equally ill-equipped to deal with the attacking prowess of York. It was not long before tries started to come. Both Rishi and GHW had fantastic games and were causing problems all across the field for Huddersfield but particularly with ball in hand – they both collected a try. The little hobbit Garmy, always alongside side for the off-load pass capitalised on one of GHW’s devastating run’s and with Gee having beaten most of the field Garmy just had to jog the ball in under the post. Garmston was even more effective with his line-out throwing, in all I believe York only lost around 4 of about forty line out’s with either Captain Tate or SCA getting up just in front of their jumpers every-time, or on the York five man line-out’s the jumpers found themselves virtually unopposed. Another good game was had by the man behind the scenes, Brian Blessed who was making mince meat of the bigger Huddersfield front row.

It was only in the second half that things started to slow a little for York. Matt Pollen having dislocated his finger in the first 15 minutes of the 1^st half was forced to leave the field, but when Mortimer was smashed for around the 10^th time off the ball he went down hard and when un-able to answer either where he was or how many fingers were being held up, he was forced to leave the field. Adam Wood had another excellent game although too, was probably suffering from mild concussion as Huddersfield best palyer, their seven, being given a free license by the referee took every possible opportunity to smash little old man Wood. Indeed at one point when York found themselves penalised 3 consecutive times without any play Wood was so incensed he was found screaming and punching the conversion post shields. Bummer stepped in well at 10, and Tilney made a good come back to the 2nds beign solif in both attack and defence, Abbott had a positive impact off the bench, but in a second half so broken by either penalties or injuries (to both sides) the game was scrappy and there were few truly notable moments.

Tries also came from Niall and Terrager who scored two making it five tries from his last two games, and holds the accolade for opening and ending the scoring in each. Mortimer kicked five of the conversions to bring York to 40 points, only missing one kick from right in the corner.

York 2^nd XV

1.Sheppard, 2. Garmston, 3. Blessed, 4. Carr-Archer, 4. Johnson, 6. Tate, 7. Holder-Williams, 8. Rishi, 9.Wood, 10. Mortimer, 11. Niall, 13. Pollen, 13. Terrager, 14. BOT, 15. Morris, 16. Cross, 17. Huey-Abbott, 18. Alexander, 19.Tilney, 20. Voight.