Selborne run away with Queen's
The Queen’s 1st XV found themselves on the receiving end of a rampant Selborne team, and slumped to a 22-3 defeat on the Selborne fields in East London on Saturday afternoon.
Selborne took control of the game from the very early stages and opened their scoring as early as the fifth minute following numerous penetrating forward crashes in the Queen’s 22-metre area, and a quick recycled ball spread wide by the backline.
The early onslaught and the “in your face” aggression from Selborne, appeared to have stunned the Queenians who battled to find any rhythm, and in fact, looked rattled throughout the first half. Selborne continued to do most of the playing and appeared to have the edge in both the tight and the loose exchanges. They also gave a good display of channelled running in threes, forcing the Queen’s players to defend for all they were worth.
Selborne’s second try was scored in the 189th minute following a Queen’s error, which allowed the ball to be turned over for centre Robert Alers to score. Both of their first half tries were converted by fullback Jean Dixon, while the Queen’s flyhalf Lionel Cronje was on target with a penalty to score Queen’s only points of the game. Selborne led 14-3 at the break.
During the second half, the home side continued to look impressive and scored their third try in the second minute when the ball was taken down the blind side following a scrum, for left wing David Russell to score in the left hand corner.
It was only mid-way through this half that Queen’s managed to find some sort of cohesion and pattern, and their backline had a number of very good runs down the left side of the field with left wing Sbura Sithole showing a fine turn of pace on a number of occasions, but with little support from his inside backs, many of these promising forays failed to result in points.
Despite these valiant efforts, one got the feeling that the Queenians were forcing the pace in a effort to get points on the board, resulting in some high risk rugby and 50/50 passes, many of which failed to go to hand.
The final score 22-3 to Selborne, who would have been pleased to have broken the drought, since they last managed to beat Queen’s 2004.
By Mike Boy
