Rugby Weekly Update
Last Sunday saw the U19 2nd team in action against East Kowloon and our girls in action in the U19 7s tournament.
The girls had a great time at Happy Valley playing 5 games. They won one and lost four, but two of the loses were by just one score. As you can see from the attached picture of the Breakthrough girls, from the Breakthrough Pandas team, they all enjoyed themselves. This is the first of three sevens competitions for them and we are hoping to gain a few more “W”s next time round.
The boys were up against East Kowloon and after a bit of a slow start we scored four tries to go 20-0 up at half time. Our players were more experienced and they rucked well and ran the ball well in the backs. With some hard tackling from our lads as well, EK never looked like scoring. We then scored three quick tries, all unconverted, in the second half to go into a 35 – 0 lead, at which point the opposition said they didn’t want to play anymore. The referee called the coaches on and as we had a few subs who had played and we were just about to put on, we asked for at least another 5 minutes. The opposition then said they wouldn’t play and would just stand there. Gunny, our coach asked them what the problem was and they said our team was too rough and kept punching them. As we hadn’t seen a punch all game and the referee had not given one penalty for rough play or spoken with anyone it was all rather bizarre. Gunny said he would speak to our team and so EK reluctantly agreed to play an extra 5 minutes. About two minutes later one of our lads tackled one of their bigger players who rolled on top of him and started punching him. This led to an “all in” from both teams, with some punches thrown by both sides but to be honest was mostly pushing and shoving. Order was eventually restored and we had two boys with bloody noses and they got a couple of yellow cards, at which point they walked off. The referee awarded us a penalty and not knowing what to do our lads elected to kick for goal, and like all our other kicks they missed. With no opposition to play against the referee blew time.
To be honest that is the first time I have ever seen anything like that and was a great disappointment. It goes against everything we teach our boys. We have been on the end of some right royal thrashings in our time, but we have never given up like that, or let the boys behave in such a way. I don’t understand how their coaches could let them behave like that. Anyway I have submitted a report and the Union who will wait to hear from the referee and opposition before deciding what to do, so I will say nothing more at this time.
Next week its Chinese New Year but we are taking 42 lads to watch the NATIXIS CUP Highlanders vs Racing 92. It should be a great afternoon of rugby and the boys will hopefully learn about the positive side of rugby.
Happy New Year too you all and may the year of the Monkey be good to you