George Campbell beats St Charles 10-7

09-Mar-13. Hosts George Campbell scraped home 10-7 against St Charles in a new fixture. It’s excellent that the two schools are competing again because past indications suggested that they are more or less on par in rugby. This match proved it. A very even contest just as the scoreline suggests with both teams enjoying periods of domination.

Making life difficult for the players on the day was a strong diagonal cross-field wind which swirled around at times made passing (and kicking) extremely challenging. As a result, both teams made countless handling errors.

By agreement, the game was divided into four quarters. The first quarter belonged almost entirely to Campbell. Their try-scoring opportunities were either foiled by unforced errors or gutsy St Charles defending. Campbell however finally earned some reward when a few passes stuck and prop Thabiso Mweli went over. Due to the strong wind making it difficult to get the ball to stand upright on the kicking tee, flyhalf and captain Mondli Nkosi timed out on his conversion, which is something quite unusual to see.

In the second quarter, St Charles used the wind to good effect. They launched a big punt down field and then enjoyed some territorial advantage. When a poor clearance kick was collected by tall SCC right wing Paul Jacobs, he took off on a strong 30-metre run down the right hand touchline, broke a couple of tackles along the way and scored a really good try, which he’d made look easy by showing good strength on his feet. Fullback Matt Dukes landed the difficult conversion and St Charles suddenly found themselves 7-5 ahead.

George Campbell responded in the best way possible. Their backline has so much potential which was showed at times during the recent Damelin Night Series. After a bit of pressure applied in the St Charles redzone, the ball when through the hands and fullback Nathan Keaton rounded off an excellent try in the right hand corner. A lot of credit has to go to centre Innocent Nkomo who made the decisive pass between defenders to set up the 5-point finish. George Campbell deserved their at 10-7 half-time lead.

The third quarter started brightly for St Charles. They started to play with more structure but could not convert possession into points, despite coming close on a couple of occasions. Both teams proved to be their own worst enemies when trying to go wide, as they struggled to come to terms with the strong wind, resulting in inaccurate passes and knock-ons. Campbell had however lost focus and even their short quick interchanges that makes their play so attractive to watch let them down. They did well to battled back to finish strongly in the last quarter.

When the final whistle sounded, the Campbell players did not display any signs of joy. They were clearly disappointed with their own effort. They may however look back on this game later in the season and realise that this was a good victory against tough opposition. In spite of the numerous errors, the evenness of match-up made it an interesting game for spectators to watch, with the result not being a forgone conclusion until the last play was completed.