The Buccs march on!

The Buccs march on and attempt to defend their current unbeaten streak this season, 2 friendlies and 2 league games down. A harder test would greet us at Driffield, with last year’s Eastern Merit champions with their tails in the air after they toppled current league leaders, Pocklington the previous week. As such, an inter galactic encounter awaited us which would generate a crater as big as Danny Reeves’ exploded manhood into the home planet of English rugby, the Eastern Merit League.

Similar to last week, 1st team starlet, Alfie, kicked us off with the wind at our backs and immediately Driffield were under pressure with an inability to exit against the gust. Nonetheless, after a lovely monologue from Allenby about not being offside, he was immediately given offside and a penalty awarded to Driff. He would redeem himself by stealing some of the opposition lineout but I won’t mention that. A couple of minutes in and the biggest hooker I’ve ever seen this side of hessle road, Mike Mel, fired in a line out for the big lads to set up a rolling maul 25m out. The mall shifted into warp speed led by Moosey, Ry and the boys. I’m not sure Mike has ever run so fast as he some how found himself at the back of the maul, pickpocketed Moose 1m out and touched down for his first meat pie of the day. Extras added and things were looking good at 7-0. Driffield had other plans however, and just a few minutes later after some handling errors from both teams, Driffield found themselves 15m out from Ionians try line. A simple pass to their big 2nd row was collected and he sprinted through approximately 3 Ionians weak shoulders and dotted down for a 7 point score just outside of the posts which proved to provide a much needed wake-up call for the seemingly lacklustre Buccs. 7-7 and game on 10 mins in.

Lucky for us, Alfie had his weetabix that morning, with extra milk. The man was milk drunk and on a mission. 2 carbon copy tries were scored in the space of 3 minutes. 60m out and Alfie found a gap, pinned his ears back and out paced the Driff fullback and winger for his first 7 pointer. He’d not even had chance to catch his breath when the next kick off allowed the exact same situation to occur. Platform set by Allenby and Jake off kick off, gap found by Alfie and another 60m 7 point reward. As I keep telling the mrs, you can get a lot done in 3 minutes… Outstanding stuff and one which would change the tide of the game in Ionians’ favour to 21-7.

Driffield never gave up the fight and despite injuries to their fly half and mutant second row, their centres continued to run some tasty lines and tested the bottle of I’s shoulders. We managed to hold strong but both teams coughed up possession in and around the ruck and meant a large remainder of the half was played around the Driffield 40m line. Nonetheless buoyed by some hard running from Benn, Moose and Reevesy it allowed us to get a stronger territorial foot hold in Driff’s half. Pete McGlynn would constantly pop up with the ball either in defence or offering himself a forward runner and this would provide a platform for us to finally put some phases together. Frankie linked up nicely with Benn for a short tip pass on the 22 which cut through the Driff defence like a knife through an infected testicle. Frankie would attempt to replicate this pass shortly after only this time for Benn to get sent back to kingdom come, you win some you lose some. However, back to the overlap which Frankie created and Alfie managed to scream for the ball and play a straight forward pass to Jake who got his reward for some outstanding shifts these last few games and another 7 pointer was added to the tally before half time. 28-7.

The 2nd half didn’t reflect a drastic change in the game, Ionians continued to dominate in most areas but often failed to retain possession to play the structure we so desired. Although there were some exceptional carries from Allenby and also an outrageous defensive effort from the bloke. Whenever Driff started to pull some phases together, Allenby would stop them in their tracks with a blitz defence which constantly offered territory for us. He was rewarded for his defensive efforts and managed to break down the right hand side of the pitch and canter 30m towards the line only to be tackled 20m from the try line. Fear not, the ball wasn’t dead and found its way to Luke on the wing who 1 on 1 with the Driff winger, put a nicely weighted grubbed kick inside for Will Heylings (who makes a welcome return to Ionians colours) for a delightful pick up 1m out to fall over the line. That’s no mean feat given the pathetic size of his arms, surprised he could pick it up!! The try would go unconverted, 33-7.

It wasn’t going all our way as the scoreline suggests, colossal defence from Allenby, Tomms, Paul, and many others meant Driffield were often forced into playing outside of their intended game plan and kept getting caught short by some poor handling in the back line. Ionians would capitalise again and who else but the bearded wonder, Mike Mel. He sprinted in from 137m out, goose stepped 4 defenders to blitz down the blindside, hurdle 2 more defenders and score in the corner (received a pass from a two on one and ran roughly 30m, including a mediocre hand-off to dot down). Take good care of that beard lad, heard it’s getting ripped off next week… try unconverted and a healthy scoreline of 38-7.

Probably the best part of our game was when Driffield ended up getting some points back. They sustained around 5 solid minutes of possession in our 22 and our defence held strong with every man getting involved 1-15, even Bradders (when forced). Nonetheless, our defence on occasion was potentially too keen and gave away 4 penalties on the bounce. Pube would get sin binned for conceding the 5th after laying on the wrong side of the ruck. Do Argos sell brain cell detectors? Not in farmer land it would appear… Driff were rewarded and finally broke down our defence to put their 13 in on the far corner. Well deserved. The last notable part of the game saw Heylings cut a fantastic direct line through the heart of Driff’s defence and offload to Pete who touched down for a final score of 45-12.

Notable mentions go to back of the match Alf, making a habit of being really quite good. Forward of the match, Melly, doing a shift in whichever position we require, class. Pete who was a constant menace in defence at the breakdown, and Allenby who was just the same. Next week sees us take on Ensians back at the fortress. Some call it the Israel v Palestine of the Eastern Merit League. These match reports aren’t political so I’ll let you decide which team is which.