St Andrew's win in the cold

A freezing cold Grahamstown welcomed Selborne College on Saturday morning for our annual fixture.

Although Selborne have not had the best of seasons by their high standards no fixture against our East London opponents is ever easy and we knew that a wounded Selborne side was lying in wait.

The conditions were not conducive to attractive rugby as the wind was howling and Lower had been drenched by rain throughout the day.

The First XV, however, were determined to build on last week’s performance and took to the field ready for a titanic struggle.

College played into the wind in the first half and knew that they would have to hold onto the ball and frustrate their opponents as kicking into the wind was not really an option. The College side did this brilliantly and once they decided to keep things simple began to completely dominate play.

After sustained pressure and some fantastic interplay between backs and forwards the ball was shifted wide quickly to centre Ryan Horne who found himself on the wing and dived over in the corner for a fantastic try.

Selborne did have opportunities and had the College side under pressure at times, but defence held firm and Selborne never really looked like scoring. They did however get a penalty for their efforts leaving the score at 5-3 to College. College dominated the end of the first half but could not capitalise with points and the sides went into the break with the game still in the balance at 5-3.

College now playing with the wind at their backs struggled to get ascendency early in the second half as some errors crept into their game. However, as soon as they started dominating territory again the pressure began to tell and Ryan Horne extended the College lead first through a long range penalty and then through another under the Selborne poles after numerous indiscretions by the Selborne team. The score now stood at 11-3 and College were firmly in control and playing some great rugby. Once more backs and forwards interlinked to set up Ryan Horne for try number two in the corner putting the game out of reach of Selborne at 16-3.

College did let Selborne in for a try in the dying seconds but this did not put a dampener on an outstanding team performance by the First XV. The final score was 16-8 to College.

Well done to all the College teams on the day and to our opponents Selborne!