TRINITY 6 WEYBRIDGE VANDALS 43

Less than a week after Lime Meadow staged a game of rather suspect quality in mildly awkward conditions, it staged a match in considerably worse playing circumstances that proved to be of much higher standard.

The afternoon rain in excess of the forecast did pose a problem that threatened to lead to another postponement, but the pitch knuckled down and made itself playable in time for kick-off. Playable, but far from conducive to sparkling rugby. A huge factor in the game would be ball security, and to quote General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogamany Melchett again, “Security is not a dirty word. Crevice is a dirty word, but security isn’t.”

Playing up the hill did not prevent Weybridge from dominating the early territory but the Trinity defence was stout and the opening score did not arrive until fifteen minutes had gone, although with it being made wide out and the mud making place kicking difficult, the conversion was unsuccessful and the visitors led 5-0. The home team hit back quite quickly with a Jack Greenwood penalty to make it 3-5. Within a couple of minutes Weybridge added a second try for a seven point advantage but the threat of tit-for-tat scoring then disappeared and the game hit half time still stuck at 3-10. Vandals had missed a scoring chance when dropping the ball in the act of grounding it and the last act of the half saw Trinity held up trying to drive over the away try line through several phases by the forwards.

With an advantage in the scrum and conditions destined to keep those set pieces as a factor, Trinity playing up the slope from behind on the scoreboard was not as daunting as it might have been on a windier day with it still raining, but the first fifteen minutes of the second half saw a mini-meltdown from Trinity that decided the game. A try was somehow conceded from a defensive scrum which they won, and although another Greenwood penalty clawed back three points, five minutes of weak tackling, out of character with the rest of the match, gave Vandals two more tries, both converted to create a 29-6 lead. An attempted home rally halted with the forwards again over the line but the ball the ball stubbornly remaining above the turf. In the circumstances, with the rucking obliterating the pitch markings and piles of forwards all covered in mud, both of the attempts to grind over the line in very tight play were not really destined to offer the referee an irrefutable sight of the ball being grounded. It certainly contrasted with the Vandals attacks which depended on efficient passing that avoided over-ambition and very direct individual running.

There was a lull in the scoring after this burst of activity, giving the big crowd ample time to reminisce over great farces played out in the mud on that pitch in the past. Vandals played to keep Trinity pinned in their own half, kicking for territory more than they had previously, and whilst the home team made a decent fist of running it back, particularly when opting to take quick penalties as Vandals scrambled back the required ten metres, the attacks were starting too deep to be any more than a temporary relief, rather than a scoring threat. The admirable effort took a toll, and Weybridge added two more scores late on for a 43-6 final score. Their capable adaptation to the extreme conditions merited putting points on the board but Trinity’s performance outside of the rocky start to the second period was not deserving of such a wide margin of defeat.

Trinity team: Hall, Jupp, Bryant; Bacon, Hubbard; McMillan, Vaillant, Farooq Agbalaya; Wilson, Crouch; Greenwood, McEvilly, Williams, Stanton; Telfer. Subs: Plumb, Scott, True

Match report: Simon McInnes
Tribe Advisory Player of the Match: TBA