Match Report against Vikings

Last Saturday Shamrocks travelled to Vikings to take on the old foe. We were short a few key players, due to injury and non-rugby commitments. The question was how would this play out on the field?

Second grade got off to a good start with a well worked try in the corner. Vikings struck back quickly with an intercept try, it was against the run of play, so didn’t look to be a concern. Then Shamrocks got a penalty try off a nice rolling maul, from a lineout. For the rest of the game Shamrocks looked well on top and the better team but was unable to convert that dominance into points. The score was didn’t reflect the Shamrocks dominance. 

In the end Shamrocks 12 Vikings 10

First grade was a different story all together. Shamrocks got away to a good start with a really nice try in the corner and kept the score board ticking over regularly for the rest of the game. The difference looked to me to be the attacking and defending structures of the two teams. Shamrocks knew where they were to be and repositioned quickly, Vikings repositioned very slowly, allowing Shamrocks to take advantage the gaps that opened up, particularly out wide. Into the 2nd half the ref. called uncontested scrums (which was very disappointing given Vikings had contested for the whole of the 2nd grade game). Unfortunately, the game became very scrappy from that point on, but was never in doubt.

Final score Shamrocks 45 to Vikings 12

It is good to see Vikings rebuilding numbers this year.