A cracking game

I like Okehampton as a club, I remember well the 21st November 1998 when we lost 35~11 but the seconds won over the road, we had the best after match do I have ever had when we bid farewell to our Japanese player Kissi who came to us with no knowledge of rugby for a few months while in Plymouth learning English.
The place was a riot of drinking games and singing for some hours after the game was over. He came with a bottle of Saki that the kitchen warmed up and some Japanese delicacies for us to try. Commodore Hall, our chairman, presented him with a club plaque and he was in tears and, as Private Eye would say say, tired and emotional.
I was never quite sure what his vocabulary was like after four months of rugby with us.
Still I wander off the subject.
Those that watched this game said it was a real cracker and from the flow of the texts from Kieran it sounded like it.
Coming only four days after a very tough game against Kingsbridge where we held the league leaders to 7~3 for sixty five minutes playing the second team in the league could well have been a game too far.
After three losses on the trot one of which was against bottom of the table Penryn that left me gnashing my teeth and was probably an embarrassment to the players, we seemed to regain our spark and will to win over the next three games.
Ok we only won the one game against Tiverton who were two places above us but it was a good bonus point win.
The Kingsbridge game we know about then there was the game away to Okehampton.
Twice it had been called off due to a wet pitch, this time they wanted a 18:15 kick off, for us that was quite of the question, just not enough time for the players to get away from work, drive to Okehampton which at that time of the day is a good hours drive and then some warm up time.
To get the game on Okehampton hired some lights to give a flood lit game.
So on the third attempt the game kicked off and we promptly ambushed them with two quick tries, the first after seven minutes by Ben McGowan after we created an overlap, Ben by all accounts had a storming game, the second on fifteen minutes from Kelli Bainivalu was a mirror image of the first and with the Matt Anstis conversion the home crowd must have been left open mouthed mid pint so see the score board standing at 0~12 after fifteen minutes or so.
Matt Anstis used his boot to keep Okehampton on the back foot and the referee kept their enthusiasm in the bag.
The honeymoon did not last long and Okehampton quickly came back with two converted tries, the first from a catch and drive that was stopped on the line but they took the ball from it and barged over to score, the second after collecting a kick out of defence and passing it through the hands to score with both converted they took the lead at 14~12.
They then collected a yellow card and Matt Anstis took back the lead with a penalty, 14~15.
Okehampton in their turn took back the lead when they added a penalty to make it 17~15.
An exchange of converted tries, ours at the hands of Joe Daley with a Matt Anstis conversion and theirs a penalty try after the referee adjudged we had collapsed a maul twice the left the score at 24~22.
Unfortunately a nasty ankle injury to Luke Berry held up the game for a while he was attended to and eventually taken of the pitch.
This disrupted our flow and Okehampton collected another seven points when the forwards drove over to make it 31~22 which is what it was at half time.
Matt Anstis opened the scoring in the second half with a penalty to close the gap slightly at 31~25.
Okehampton widened the gap with a converted try and a score line of 38~25.
At this point they collected their second yellow card but were able to add another penalty, 41~25.
That was it for Okehampton, scoring done.
For Services that was definitely not it with the clock running down a fourteen man maul shoved Dan Edgecombe over the line for a try and with it a well earned bonus point.
We had a number of chances to kick penalties had we done so we might have won, we chose to go for the corners and score tries that I think was the right option.
Man-of-the-match? Ben McGowan had a stormer as I said, Eddie McGinely a cracker, Sean Dunn? the list goes on, in the end the management gave up and decided everyone had a good game and so they did.
What ever happens in the last two games matters, next week Cullompton at home then Wadebridge away, both are possible winners particularly if we play as we did on Wednesday.
Well done.