|
As
Metropolis rugby club's bus turned right onto I94 to head straight
home, I hope they recognized that they had been in a quality game. It would
have been a pleasure to have shown
metropolis our graciousness and hospitality in defeat, had they
decided to attend the aftermatch. They
did have a long drive home
, one that must have felt better
due to their efforts in the final minute of the game.
Metropolis with this win will move into second
place in the west and are still in the hunt for that Midwest 2nd
seed for the nationals.
The game
began perfectly for Metro and they
lead after a quick try in the 3rd minute and began to apply large pressure on the
harlequins defense. 5 minutes in
the crowd was rewarded when the home team finally had any opportunity to
penetrate into the metros half and were rewarded with a penalty within 10
meters of the tryline. The quins opted as they did last week to take the scrum
and push it in. phillepe leka went over for the try and even the game.
The rest
of the half saw an advantage for reasons to metro at the rucks and breakdowns. Strong had defense kept the score to 14-7 and then at the
end of the half dom singleton in an individual effort intercepted a play and
went 70 meters for a try and the half finished 14 all.
The
second half saw metro come out
firing for some more open continuous play and having success in off loading in
the tackle while the harlequins looked to gain some control at the breakdown.
20 minutes to go metro had 2 more unconverted tries and a 10 point cushion and
may have felt they had control of the match. Pressure at the
break downs and a good team build
up was finished off by some entertaining passing by the quins back three that
saw Cyprian Shimenga go over in the corner, with Phillippe Leka's conversion
21-24. Metro came back to put the
hammer in the coffin with a quick drive down the field for another unconverted try to extend their lead out to 8 points
with 10 to go.
For a
spectator the whole game should have been an enjoyable experience of watching
fast entertaining rugby, the next nine minutes of play from the Quinns were some of the teams best. The
cohesion and interaction of the team lead to some well structured phases of
play that saw Collins Akwanyi put
on his dancing shoes and reward all of the quinns pressure with an unconverted
try. Nice effort but the quinns
were not finished, we had not come to division one to be a make up game , we had come to win. That mindset saw the lead finally swing to
the harlequins when mark fine went
over for an unconverted try to
change the score to 31-29.
From the
kick off the harlequins secured
the ball and ran some tight phases
to run down the remaining minutes on the clock. With time up the ball was
turned over and metro took full advantage and scored the finally try of the
game right between the posts.21-36 finally score
The
cliché that rugby is an 80 minute
game was born from games like this. Also saying such as " stealing a game"
" playing 16 against 15" also come to mind but the one I would prefer to
mention is that I saw a team that
lost but was far from beaten. I
saw a team that after the game, quickly turned from the emotional frustration
of rulings on the field to discussing areas the team excelled and looked
at how to capture missed opportunities. This team
demonstrated an emotional maturity to continue to focus on their play as the crowd turned their attention to missed calls and perceived injustices. I will apologize to the team and our supporters as my
weakness as a coach is I become
emotionally involved in the game and verbally irate when I see hard earned advantages being removed by
illegal play. This emotional attachment is more due to the fact I am sharing an
emotion I believe any retired or active rugby player has when watching this team of late- one of Jealousy .
 |
The News 
