by Paul Cook –

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THE WARM-UP:
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Having lost two matches in a row, and sitting 7th on the ladder at the halfway stage of the season, the Students came into this one with an almost finals like approach. Another loss wouldn’t have sounded the death knell on their title aspirations but it would certainly have left them with one heck of a ride home if they were to regain their grasp on the Shute Shield trophy. Warringah meanwhile, were the competition’s quiet achievers, a slow start under new coach Greg Marr had gradually gathered momentum and they travelled to Uni Oval No.1 with confidence high on the back of a five match winning run.

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THE BREAKDOWN:
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Keen to start with plenty of fire and put last week’s lacklustre effort against West Harbour to bed, Uni dominated the possession and territory stats for the first half, asking plenty of questions of the visitors with ball in hand. But a stout rearguard action from the Rats kept them in the contest and off precious little ball, it was they who crossed for the first five-pointer through Sam Crompton and a 10-6 lead.

The Students hit back with a try of their own, Liam Winton on the end of the line to restore a one point lead but a high shot on Josh Holmes in the shadows of half-time allowed Hamish Angus to slot a penalty which gave the Rats a surprise 13-10 advantage.

Uni ramped up the pressure after the break, Jake Gordon sniping his way over from 15 metres to put his side up 17-13 and with the Student’s line speed choking the Rats behind the gain line, there was precious little room for the likes of Holmes, Angus and Feltscheer to do much damage. But with just over a quarter of the match to go, they cut a break when Uni skipper Tom Carter went to the bin for a lifting tackle.

However, it was Carter’s young team mates that rose to the challenge, Henry Clunies-Ross darting over to seemingly seal the match. But the Rats did find another gear, the ubiquitous Crompton grabbing his second to make it 28-23 and ensure a nail-biting final five minutes. Warringah drove a couple of lineout penalties to within metres of the chalk but Uni’s defence held firm to see out what could be a pivotal win in their season.

David Hickey in the thick of the action for Uni – Photo: AJF Photography

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THE WASH-UP:
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“It was important to win today but it was more important because of the disappointing performance last week in a couple of aspects,” Uni coach Chris Malone told Rugby News. “A lot of our game was decent against Wests, defensively we were good but it was just fundamental errors in terms of a couple of individual performances, so that was why it was important to win today.

“We had a really good month leading into and including the Eastwood game, which didn’t go our way on the day and we cost ourselves with some individual errors but that was a good month of footy for us. West Harbour was a blip, had we executed to the plan we would have got the result there as well so we would have been coming into this game on the back of five decent weeks.”

Captain Tom Carter felt the win was an important marker in the sand for his young team mates.

“We spoke about it on Thursday night, our backs were against the wall, we’d had three losses by five points or less and probably had an aberration last week where we didn’t turn up to the races and didn’t show Wests enough respect so, in some ways, today was season defining,” he said.

“We’re a young side and we speak about that but you’ve got to put the performances on the board to give you the opportunity to grow and play at the back end of the year. It was semi-finals like intensity and it could have gone either way. It had elements of a really good Uni performance – some physical dominance, some skills and some individual brilliance out wide – and I think that’s our job, to grow the game and hopefully give these young guys an opportunity.”

Josh Holmes clears his lines for the Rats – Photo: AJF Photography

From Warringah’s perspective, holding the lead at half-time against the run of play put them in the position to go on and claim victory. While conceding that Uni were probably better across the 80 minutes, there was still an underlying feeling that this is one that got away.

“In the first half, I reckon we had about 30% of possession and 30% of field position, we were in our half the whole time and we tackled our backsides off,” said coach Greg Marr. “At half-time, I told them they should be proud of themselves because Uni had had all the ball but we had the lead.

“Possession swings back and forth in a game but I told them we had to get our share in the second half and if we did that, I felt we could go on with it. We had our noses in front and it could have gone either way but we made a couple of mistakes, they capitalised on them and scored tries and that was it basically. I thought we were going to get it back at the end there but it wasn’t to be, Uni were deserved winners but I’m very proud of our guys and the most important thing is that we take the positives out of it and keep our heads up.”

The yellow card shown to Carter for a lifting tackle in the second half ultimately proved to be pivotal, the Students raising their game in the absence of their on-field general to score through Henry Clunies-Ross and strengthen their position at a traditional time of weakness.

“They definitely stepped up for that period and we had a poor exit and their winger went over for a try so that was a little bit of a turning point,” admitted Rats skipper, Sam Ward. “It could have gone either way there for us, we could have left it at that but credit to the guys, we got back with another try and then it was close there at the end.”

As a former head coach at Uni, Marr knows the importance of Carter to the Uni cause. “We got one try through the midfield where Tom is so good at covering but Uni covered his loss pretty well,” he conceded. “He’s a great leader, he loves to get involved with the narking and he’s pretty aggressive with his tackling. He got pulled up for it today but he’s a fair bit of their starch and I was much happier when he was off the field.”

Carter himself wouldn’t be drawn on the validity of the decision but agreed that his side had rallied well and stood up in the face of adversity. “We’re a pretty good side with 14 men. We showed that we’ve got some resolve and we actually stand for something. ‘Nobby’ [Malone] has brought in a new style of play that works but I think the hardest thing is for the younger players to have the resilience to keep going at it.

“We probably didn’t get the points we wanted when we were down there a lot of the time and then people go away from the plan, so it’s about sticking to that strategy and keep playing what we’d practiced all week. That’s hard and it’s easier said than done because obviously you’ve got an opposition that puts pressure on you, the captain gets sin-binned and Warringah are a good side and there’s moments where you don’t have momentum. The way we ground out the last 10 minutes was really pleasing.”

“He was fantastic,” enthused Chris Malone about hooker Tom Coolican’s performance – Photo: AJF Photography

Despite the loss, the Rats look set to be a feature in the finals places once again this season. Having bedded in under Marr, the attacking flair for which they have become renowned in recent years is still on display but a harder, more combative and defensively sound platform is forming underneath. The trouble is, their success in 2014 has meant that in 2015, they are a bigger fish to fry.

“Moving from ‘Haigy’ [Haig Sare] to Greg and ‘Gerrardo’ [assistant coach Mark Gerrard], it’s a little bit of a different style of coaching but we were building and absorbing the way they were coaching and slowly building momentum,” Sam Ward says of their slow start. “There was a lot of changes around the team at that period of time but we’ve been a lot more settled over the last four or five weeks. We’ve lost basically a 1st Grade backline in terms of injuries and people leaving the club in the last couple of weeks, so our backs have taken a bit of a hammering across the club as a result and I think our 4th Grade started with 14 forwards today.

“I don’t feel like there was more expectation on us boys, we knew what we were capable of, but to the rest of the competition, I think we’ve been viewed as a higher team this year,” he continued. “In years gone by, those teams may not have been as switched on coming to play us but they’ve been hungry and wanting to get us back for last year because we put a few points on teams. Now I think we’re viewed as a top four team and every week teams are turning up to play us and they’re on from the start. You saw the way Uni celebrated at the end of the game so obviously they were pretty stoked to beat us.”

Chris Malone didn’t disagree. “Warringah are a top four team in 1st Grade and they’re top of the table in 2nd Grade, so they were always going to be tough. I think they deserve plenty of credit, they got themselves in the top four after a couple of losses early in the season and that’s what happens in this comp.

“We controlled the ball well in the first half today, had we controlled the ball as well as that in the second half, potentially you open the floodgates. But we couldn’t, and that’s because Warringah are a crafty side, they’ve got a lot of experienced 1st Graders and they don’t just let you run over the top of them. For me, winning a game like today, especially the way we gutsed it out with 14 on our own line and then ground that out at the end – we’ll take that.”