Old Priorians 29 FULLERIANS 1st XV 24

London 1 North League

Fullerians haven’t had the best of luck and this game was no different. A bounce of the ball that cost 7 points and critical referee decisions at massive parts of the game. Fullers did come away with two bonus points by scoring four fine tries and losing within seven.

Right from the kick off Fullers pinned their hosts back in the 22. The clearance kick went high and swirled in the wind and unfortunately was knocked on by Fullers and the ball bounced right into the path of the attacking player who ran and scored under the posts. Rotten luck right at the start.

However, Fullers went right back and moved the ball well and eventually second row Liam Boyd was on hand to make up for his knock on to crash over.

Once again silly mistakes in their own 22 cost Fullers as scrum half Ben Matchett missed his pass and Old Priorians capitalised with another try. They extended further with another penalty as Fullers were offside.

Fullers went up field into the wind and their dominant scrum earned penalty after penalty as the hosts could not compete with the Fullers power. Marching them back and with great control at the base of the scrum No8 George Harvey crashed over. Dan Evans converting the extras this time.

In the second half and with the score at 22-12 Fullers didn’t use the wind as well as they could have done but the scrum continued to dominate and Fullers got into good field position. On the 5 metre line Fullers walked their hosts back again only for them to be penalised again and again. No penalty try or yellow card but quick thinking by scrum half Ben Matchett saw him take a tap penalty and crash over.

On the ascendency Fullers in the red zone again and with another scrum the ball went wide for Liam Mann to crash over and take the lead for Fullers at 22-24.
Once again a loss of concentration allowed Old Priorians to score down the right side as Fullers played too much rugby in their own 22.

Minutes to go, Fullers marched up field going through the phases and making good ground. The ball was knocked on and a scrum to the home side. However, this time the referee penalised Fullers for some reason but the scrum was going forward at a rate of knots in the visitors favour.

Back in their own half Fullers stole the line out and went back up into Old Priorians half and were awarded a penalty. They took a quick tap penalty rather than go for the corner using the wind and were making good ground. Unfortunately the ball was knocked on and Fullers were just down on their luck today.

“We again played some good rugby today and were unlucky with the bounce of the ball and a couple of critical decisions in big areas of the game. We gifted Old Priorians 12 points and that was the difference. We have massive games coming up which will define our season in this very competitive league” commented Fullerians Head Coach Rich Hoskins.

Team. Bushell, N. Mann, McGregor-Smith, Boyd, Kerr, Scully (Longbottom 60), Barrett, Harvey, Matchett (Wells 55), Alexander, Dollard, Maher, L. Mann, Evans. Laing.

Man of the Match: Calum Barrett