The weather certainly hasn’t been good for rugby this year so far except for this day, when the sun came out and the wind died down at John Oliver park in Delta and in Surrey at the Bell Centre field for out 3rd division.
Although I was unable to attend the game in Surrey, I was told that we were victorious by a score 35-10 despite ending the game with only 14 players, an impressive feat despite only having the 3rd division guru Graham Haigh for a half because he was making his way to see Billy Joel and Elton John in concert down in Seattle.
Stars for the game were Salvador Pimentel, Jordan Howlett, Carter Gill and Greg Cocking. The list from Graham goes on and on but he would have the whole team including subs listed, so we’ll leave it at that. Scorers were Haigh(2), Parker Heuser, Bryson Castillo, Nick Pimentel and Joe Vernier.
The second division had not missing a step from last week, kept the peddle to the metal in getting by a bigger Brit-lions squad. Big boys have one major weakness, they don’t like running all over the field. That’s what Richmond was able to make them do. Many attacks beginning in the centres with Sims and McIntyre were followed up by either some tactical kicking by Malchy or drives from the base of the scrum or runs into the backfield by the forwards. Defensively both Richmond forwards and backs played well, letting up a little periodically during the game, most likely due to fitness. Try scorers for Richmond were Eric Woods, Tim Ross, Brian Williams, and Spencer Bains, with one convert made. Final score was 22-10 for Richmond.
The first division squad, like the previous week, started a little lackluster. Offsides at the breakdown were a key problem in allowing the Brits to score fourteen points off of two converted tries in the first 15 minutes.
However, once they woke up Richmond was able to claw it’s way back into the game, with only several more hiccups. Both sides gave away penalties for the player not releasing the ball on the deck, due to a lack of support. The Richmond forwards were able to get decent possession for the backs who, unlike last week, were a constant threat to score every time they got their hands on the ball. Four of the five tries came from the backs, all very nice scoring plays. Alex Brown, Allan Tang, Mike Marquardt, and Mark Gaudrault for the backs and Jamie Overgaard was the lone try scorer for the forwards. After the initial Brit-lions onslaught of 14 points they were only able to muster one converted try.
Richmond was successful in coming back to beat them
29-21. A perfect 5-0 for the club in the 2010 year.
