NSRFC Battles Charles River B's in Marshfield Dustbowl

Correspondent Liam Brady
Edited by Gus Del Puerto

There raged a hot battle yesterday on the Marshfield plains as the scrappy upstart "Steamers"
fell behind early spotting the thuggish Rats a ten nil lead. The Rat B's had a strong veteran pack
which demonstrated strong possession skills and attacked the NS side early and often. The consistent
strong play of center Scott Marcoullier sparked his team and was rewarded with a try to close the lead to a 10-5
score at half.

Playing in desert-like conditions, the scrummaging was abysmal, the Steamer pack, both very young and very old,
was heroic in battling the veteran and well schooled ratpack, but they owned 99% of scrummage ball,
lineouts fared somewhat better as our yahoo Kenny fiercely contested every throw and won his share for us....
Loose play, especially rucks, was the scene of much spirited and hardplay, with the Steamers playing, in the
words of the Rats A captain, Tom Devlin, "impressive, you hit the rucks hard, you came to play !"
(or words to that effect), he thought we could do well Vs. Southshore in Newport.

In the early second half, following a Rats lineout, their scrumhalf outpass was intercepted with precision timing
by our flanker Cam, who finished it off with a 50 meter sprint for a rallying try! Both he and Scott had game moments and
were; forward and back, "Men of the Match" for us....

There were scores and many more descriptive events, but since I was playing again, thats the bulk of what
I remember, after more Scott and team breaks we scored again and then they rallied for two more, the score
then being NSRFC up by 2 with 7 minutes to play; the final dust- swirling players-brawling clockwatching climax
was, alas; the Rats being awarded a penalty kick for some ill-perceived offsides and then drilling a give-me to steal
our hardfought game from us.... but we held our heads up high for we had showed'em that we could beatem, and
that they needed every trick and blessing to thieve their victory...

1-3(Matt - Dan - Steve) 4-5(Liam - Jesse) 6-7-8(Cam - Chris - Ken) 9-10-11-12(Gus - Rich - Mark - Scott)
13-14-15(Rob - Reade - Marcel) 14-(Eric)

Gus once again played admirably as did the backrow with Chris, Cam and Kenny bronco-busting the many Rat breaks,
Kenny taking on their human bowling ball prop several times! Matt, Senior Senator Dan McKenzie, and little Maloney were
heavily outweighed and forced to withstand an admiral beating.... Jesse experienced a hover-try, that most unpleasant experience wherein you are in the try zone but can't get the ball to the ground! Both he and Scott deserve the credit and appreciation of their team mates for their "love of the game", and playing with stitches!

Marcel caught and countrattacked the deep balls they put up and the backline performed well. The Rats
were quickly on and after flyhalf Rich who serviced well and will be sorely missed in Newport next week...
Swanny, Rob, Reade, and Eric, Matt and Steve, everyone is important, thanks for your hardplay, dedication and
many contributions to the Steamers...

Apologies for not mentioning or remembering the many contributions and important plays and players...
Write it down and send it out while you remember them....