Queen's put fifty past Graeme
It is always an exciting derby, though a tough fixture for Graeme against Queen's. It is amazing though to send debating, squash, hockey and rugby sides down for the weekend to Queenstown.
The fledgling hockey side at Graeme, who are still very much novices at this level, conceded four goals in the first half, and then another three in the second half. The Graeme structure is getting better, but the raw skill and speed of the Queen's side was a little too much for them on Friday evening. Queen's also took the debating honours 2-1 and comfortably won the squash fixture as well.
The highlight of the rugby day, was probably the very tightly contested Under-16A game. With Graeme leading 3-0 for most of the game, Queen's eventually broke the Graeme defence in the last few minutes to score in the corner; winning 5-3.
Graeme did get wins in the Under-14B (vs Queen's C) and Under-15B games, but struggled to cope with the Queen's sides overall. The Queen's brand off running rugby, is exciting but also difficult to deal with on defence.
Despite the Queen's first XV having a jittery start to the season, they have now found a rhythm and seem to be bulldozing through recent opponents. Coming off a loss to Cambridge, the Graeme first XV were hoping they would bounce back strongly against an in form Queen's side, who had beaten Selborne the week before.
However, this was not the case on the Recreational ground on Saturday as Queen's dominated to win the match 50-6.
Early on in the game one could see that Queen's were a much bigger side as they started to gain an upper hand in the physical encounters on the field. With this in mind, Graeme tried to run the ball at all costs – on occasions asking some serious questions of the Queen's defence, which led to two penalties in the opening exchanges of the game.
Queen's also converted a penalty of their own. Unfortunately, Graeme started to miss a number of tackles as Queen's scored two tries in quick succession.
Graeme were struggling to win any ball from the line-out, and the little ball they managed to get their hands on, they seemed to hand straight back to Queen's through some unforced errors.
Queen's scored again to lead 24-6 at half-time. The second half continued in much the same fashion; Graeme on occasions asking question of the Queen's defence, but then handing the ball to Queen's through costly errors which led to a number of runaway tries.
On a day where Graeme would've liked to have given a good account of themselves and perhaps cause an upset, they rather came away feeling disappointed with the performance and realising there was still lots of hard work to be done.
Queen's showed their class as they continue to surge on in a season where they undoubtedly have the ability and firepower to compete with the best in the country.
From Graeme College
