by Paul Cook –

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THE WARM-UP:

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Last year’s runners-up, Perth Spirit, were looking to kick-start their 2015 campaign following their opening weekend defeat at the hands of Brisbane City, in what was a replay of the 2014 grand final. Buoyed by a heavy Western Force presence, they were one of the pre-competition favourites and were keen to start their home series of fixtures with victory.

For the North Harbour Rays, this game was of the utmost importance in terms of the direction their season would take. They’d impressed in patches in the round one loss to the Sydney Stars, but in such a short competition, they knew that two losses in a row would leave them very much behind the eight-ball regarding a spot in the finals.

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THE BREAKDOWN:

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The opening half hour saw the Rays faced with a tidal wave of yellow and black shirts as the Spirit started with a bang, dominating in most facets of the game except the scoreboard. A try from Richard Hardwick off a rolling maul in the 14th minute was just reward but when the predatory Josh Holmes picked off an intercept a couple of minutes later to run home, it was all square.

Sevuloni Mocenacagi restored Perth’s advantage, the pacy winger over in the corner after his backline had gone through the hands. But again, the Rays countered off a rare opportunity, a terrific bullet pass from Hamish Angus putting fullback Reece Hodge through the line and he fed Alex Northam to the corner.

With half an hour played, the scoreboard wasn’t a reflection of the Spirit’s ascendancy, their failure to capitalise on their dominance a combination of both sloppy execution in the red zone, alongside some desperate scramble defence from the Rays. And when skipper Heath Tessman went to the bin four minutes before half-time, the visitors seized their chance, Boyd Killingworth spinning his way over off a lineout drive to give his side the unlikeliest of half-time leads, 21-13.

Four minutes after the restart, the ubiquitous Killingworth was in for a second, emerging from a ruck like a thief in the night to help his increasingly confident side to a 16pt advantage. But the score served as a wake-up call for the Perth side, Hardwick in again off a driving maul on 48 minutes before a soft tackle allowed wing Maalonga Konelio to run home unopposed and leave a 3pt ball game with just over 25 to play.

However, just as they’d fought their way back into contention, the home side shot themselves in the foot once more, flanker Angus Cottrell falling foul of referee Andrew Lees’ interpretation to earn a 10 minute sabbatical from the action. It proved to be the catalyst the Rays needed to kick again with the finishing line in sight, and two minutes later, replacement Lawrance Hunting found nobody home around the fringes to power his way over for try no.5.

The Rays weren’t going to be reeled in from there, Holmes and Angus guiding their side around the park in the last quarter with aplomb, while the entire bench offered the necessary impact to get them over the line. Nine minutes from time, a rampaging Harry Rorke applied the mortal wound, crashing over off a short ball from Holmes to send the Rays back across the Nullarbor with confidence renewed, and leave the Spirit wondering just where this one went astray.

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THE WASH-UP:

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Given the pressure they were under in that opening half hour, Rays head coach Geoff Townsend felt that his side’s ability to come through that period relatively unscathed was a hugely positive sign for the future.

“We had no right to be leading by three tries to two at half-time, that was just a credit to the guys and their resolve and their ability to work with each other and have respect for our game plan and for their team mates. It was exciting to see that,” he told Rugby News.

“We didn’t get a lot of possession early in the game but what we were able to do was prevent them from getting on top of us in that area. We made defence our focus this week, they came out with intent early and we put some shots on and forced some turnovers, we held our line and we worked with each other and did the little things that sometimes go missing in games when you’re thrown together as a group in a short space of time.

“Those 25-30 minutes not only held us in good stead in the game, it also gave us something to build on in terms of our identity and we were much harder to crack than we were in the first game against the Stars. We had a similar scenario last year when we played the Queensland Country side and we defended for the last 20 minutes of the game to win it and that set us up for a good run and hopefully, we can build on this performance in the same way.

No.8 Sam Ward agreed that the defensive effort was a marked improvement on round one, against what was a clearly well-drilled Spirit outfit.

“We know that we can attack but our defence really let us down against the Stars,” he said. “It wasn’t so much missed tackles, it was more reacting to the plays and adjusting to the fact that there are a lot of quick taps in this competition rather than the opposition playing for penalty goals.”

“The Spirit were just attacking our line for phase after phase in that first 25 minutes today and we did defend really well. They’re pretty good around the tackle contest at holding onto the ball and when we did get it, they were able to force us into little errors and force a turnover and get good field position. We were having a lot of trouble just getting out of our own end.”

Rays’ flyhalf Hamish Angus gets one of his five successful conversions away in time – Photo: Johan Schmidt Photography

Opposing Ward in the Spirit backrow was Western Force flanker, Chris Alcock. He was understandably frustrated by his side’s inability to profit from their positive opening.

“We came out and started well, we stuck to the structure that we wanted to and we had some ascendancy early on but in the end, probably our discipline let us down and we didn’t adapt to how the game progressed,” he conceded.

“One of our focuses this year is to have a crack but in taking that approach, there will also be some errors and there were times there where we probably should have held onto the ball instead of throwing a flick pass or something similar. The Rays did very well considering they had almost no ball to work with. They have hard, strong runners and at times, we weren’t quick enough to transition from attack to defence and that cost us points.”

Having had precious little possession and spent the majority of the time camped inside their own 22, Sam Ward admitted to being so caught up in the heat of the battle that the state of the game when the half-time whistle blew, caught him somewhat off-guard.

“I looked across at the score at half-time and was actually surprised when it said we were up 21-13 because we’d hardly had the ball!” he laughed. “We did make the most of a couple of little chances that we got, one of which was particularly against the run of play, but we’ll happily take what we can get.

“Having got through that 40 minutes, the half-time chat amongst the forwards was that we wanted to play a bit more off Josh [Holmes] at nine and run that little bit wider, rather than staying so close. During the first half we were doing a lot of pick-and-go’s and we probably weren’t making the inroads that we needed to just because they were so strong around that tackle contest, so that was our focus.”

The Rays were certainly given a leg-up by the Spirit’s failure to adjust to the way referee Andrew Lees was officiating the game, resulting in a constant stream of advice – and warnings – from Lees towards Spirit captain, Heath Tessman. Unfortunately for the skipper, he didn’t exactly set the best example by being sent to the bin just before half-time, his 10 minute absence either side of the break ushering in two pivotal tries to the impressive Boyd Killingworth.

Rays flanker Boyd Killingworth was arguably best on ground – Photo: Johan Schmidt Photography

“It was quite frustrating,” admitted Alcock. “You don’t like letting in points just before or just after half-time, regardless of the yellow card, but discipline is clearly something that we’re going to have to work on because you can’t afford two yellow cards in a game.”

That second yellow, for Angus Cottrell on 54 minutes, was also costly as it came at a time when the hosts had just forced their way back into the contest. But Alcock felt that there was still something lacking in terms of the Spirit’s game management in the second stanza, regardless of the numbers on the field.

“We did say going into the second half that we wanted to play with a bit more structure but we didn’t end up doing that and maybe went back to having a crack and taking an ‘If it’s on, go for it’ approach,” he reflected. “We took too many chances at the wrong points of time in the game.

“Our scrum and our maul went very well, they’re definitely assets that we want to keep working on but while we had the platform, we didn’t take our opportunities and that’s something that we’ve got to learn from. We also have to make sure that our ruck defence is good, you can’t allow easy metres there and it was an area the Rays exploited very well.”

Nevertheless, at 29-26 in the 52nd minute, the game could have gone either way, but the assuredness of some of the Rays’ key decision makers, coupled with the positive input from each and every replacement, was the deciding factor in turning the game the way of the visitors.

“We made a few changes around that time and the guys got into a bit of a rhythm as a pack and we came through well to get a couple more tries to seal the win,” said Ward. “I thought Joshy and ‘Hamo’ [Hamish Angus] did really well, particularly in closing the game out, and Hodgey [Reece Hodge] in his first game for us was fantastic at the back and showed why he’s got that Super Rugby contract.”

Spirit lock Rory Walton builds up a head of steam – Photo: Johan Schmidt Photography

Coach Townsend was also happy to sing the praises of his fledgling side.

“We’ve got weapons throughout the 23 and it’s a credit to the replacements for what they added to the team when they came on the field,” he enthused. “There were some really good plays from Hamish, Reece and others, Hilly [Tom Hill] and Dennis [Pili-Gaitau] came into the game and Boyd and ‘Demmo’ [Jack Dempsey] were effective with their carries. Harry Rorke had a great game too for his first run-out, he was just a workhorse.”

If the arrival in Perth less than 24hrs before kick-off, followed by 80 minutes of fast, frenetic footy, and then the red-eye back across the Nullarbor only a few hours after the final whistle, weren’t enough of a physical challenge for the Rays entourage, their task certainly isn’t made any easier by the fact that they now have to back up for a Thursday night game – live on Fox Sports – against last season’s Minor Premiers, Melbourne Rising.

“It’s an interesting turnaround isn’t it?” smiled Townsend. “We talked about recovery and looking after the body after the game but after a result like that, you’ve got to give the boys a little bit of leeway. They were able to fight through adversity today, which we probably didn’t do in round one, and they’re all a bit more familiar with each other now, the trip here has been fantastic for us in terms of bringing them together as a group. Hopefully they can get some rest and then we’ll be straight back into it ahead of the Rising match because we’ve still got some issues, particularly at the set-piece, that we’ve got to work on.

“We’re in a really hard stretch of games – not that there’s any easy games – but we’re playing professional teams over these three weeks. We’ve played Perth, then it’s Melbourne and then Brisbane – all teams that have got a fully contracted list of players who have been together for quite some period of time and are in an environment where they’re doing this on a day-to-day basis.

“But, I do believe that whilst we don’t have a lot of Super Rugby contracted players right now, I think we will have by the end of the tournament or, that moving forward, some of these guys will get that chance within the next two or three years.”

The Spirit meanwhile, face their own coast-to-coast marathon when they head to Sydney for this Saturday’s clash against the unbeaten – and free-scoring – Sydney Stars.

“It’s going to be an important game against the Stars this week,” admitted Alcock. “It should be quite an entertaining game, we showed against Brisbane City that we are a team that can defend and defend well so hopefully we won’t allow them to rack up that amount of points against us.

“Our main focus is still going to be on our attack, we’ve just got to figure out when is the right and wrong time to have a crack. We still want to be playing a really positive style of rugby and using this competition as a springboard into Super Rugby next year.”

NORTH HARBOUR RAYS 45 (Boyd Killingworth 2, Josh Holmes, Alex Northam, Lawrence Hunting, Harry Rorke tries; Hamish Angus 5 cons) defeated PERTH SPIRIT 26 (Richard Hardwick 2, Sevuloni Mocenacagi, Maalonga Konelio tries; Albert Nikoro con, Ian Prior con)