St Ives vs Heathens

with St Ives 2nds teaching the Heathens a lesson in fitness and spreading the ball a couple of weeks ago, Heathens went into this game with a plan of action to stifle the young Back line of St Ives. From the kick off however St Ives managed to bisect the Heathens defence within the first 3 and score under the posts. This did nothing but motivate the Heathens and they sparked into life through the first set piece of the game. A solid performance by the powerful Heathens pack saw the time and again drive St Ives backwards turning the ball over and releasing the 8,9 duo of Tommy McCollin and Matt King. The forward pressure told and Try machine Jake Bailey crashed over from short range to even the odds. The heathens built on this and every attack seemed to result in a score with Jake Bailey grabbing his second and a well worked move by the 8,9 combo sending Tommy McCollin over for his first. The pick of the first half tries was a 50m effort by Reece Gratton, who jinked his way through a congested midfield freeing him up to put the afterburners on and dive over under the posts.
the second half started as the first ended with slick hands and brute force from the heathens and the score board kept ticking over in their favour. Captain James Daw took a rest and changes meant that McCollin moved to 10. this move worked well after the big lump sold a dummy to crash over for his second. revived somewhat captain Dawesy re-entered the fold at 10 moving McCollin to 12 who duly went over to complete his triple. The most Irish person in the world Fergal Sweeney was then sent over after some lovely hands by the backs. this was to be the end of the Heathens scoring (although I may have missed a few scores). fatigue in the last 20 from the heathens meant that st Ives were able to cross the line a few times to make the score much closer than the performance may have deserved to finish the game 39-46 to the mighty Heathens. Captain James Daw said after the game that choosing a Man of the Match was difficult as the team performance was outstanding for the most part but this week it should be split between Jake Bailey and Tommy McCollin as both were rampant and St Ives struggled to deal with them both.

Director Of Rugby McCollin stated that this team shows how far this club has come in a short space of time to be able to field 2 sides a week easily and have so many players making themselves available to play bodes well for the future. Bring on the Next Game