Following the charity game on 3rd September against Dowty’s this was the first official game of the season for Longlevens. It was against a familiar opposition in Walcott Warriors, and as always the game was entertaining spectacle with some lovely attacking rugby being shown by both teams.
Walcot Warriors started brightest after a knock on by Longlevens gave them good field position in the Longlevens 22. However due to the strong defensive line by Longlevens, Walcot were not able to make this pressure count and were not able to generate any points during this time. After a few turnovers won by the Longlevens flankers Paul Watson and Pete De Klein, Longlevens managed to get the ball back, and launch an attack of their own, leading to Jack Giles going close to scoring in the corner however his foot was in touch. From the lineout, Walcot cleared their lines. Longlevens managed to spread the ball from the resulting lineout and Jordan Rankinwoodhouse going over for the first try of the game, Luke Pegler got the conversion, score was 7-0.
Longlevens then started to put the pressure on Walcot and managed to get 2 quick tries after this. After a couple of phases with the forwards, the ball was spread out wide with Jordan Rankinwoodhouse going past 2 defenders to score his second of the game however conversion was missed. The next try came from the returning Aaron Mitchell who has been out injured for nearly a year, who after some good passing in the backs, found a gap and when in under the posts. Conversion was scored by George Stubbs. Score was now 19-0.
The game was threatening to run away from Walcot, however not long after the restart after a break by Johnny, Walcot Scrumhalf, he managed to evade a few tackles to go in and score and convert his own try. Score was now 19-7 to Longlevens. Longlevens were the next team to score again out wide with Sam Meadows rounding his defender to score however conversion was missed. Before half-time there was 3 more scores. Walcot got the next 2 tries, with Morgan beating the covering defence to go over and the other Walcot Winger also going over. Morgan’s try was not converted, but Josh from Walcot converted the second try, which was the most celebrated conversion of the day. Before the end of the half, Longlevens managed to get another try, this time a penalty try due to an infringement by the Walcot player in stopping a certain try for George Stubbs. Half time score was 31-19.
Longlevens started the second half as they did the at the end of the first half with another try. Paul Watson put a grubber through and managed to gather his own kick and score but again no conversion. The slick attack from Longlevens was coming to the fore when the Walcot defence started to get tired with another 3 unanswered tries from Longlevens. Aaron Mitchell beat 3 defenders to go over and score his second. Connor Scantlebury managed to go over for his first try this season and Jordan Rankinwoodhouse also managed to go over and get his hat-trick. However only one of these conversions were scored, by Luke Pegler.
Walcot did manage to get the 2 final tries of the game. After a break by the number 8 for Walcot, who was fantastic all game, managed to get the ball to one of the Walcot forwards to go over and score under the posts. Todd Burge, who is a fly half in a hookers body, slotted a lovely conversion. The final try of the game was Morgan’s second of the game with Johnny getting the final conversion.
Final score was 53-33 to Longlevens.
Fantastic effort by all players and the effort and planning in training was really starting to show in this performance.
Next fixture is at home against Melksham on 07/10/2023 at home.
Man of the match: George Stubbs was voted man of the match this week as you can see his development over pre-season and in the last game as well as in this game, and was a great performance. Also a shout out to Mark Ellis who is getting used to a new position and performed very well in this position and his performance showed like he had played it for years.
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