Rugby Round Up: Trouble For Trinity

Every week The Tab brings you all the results and the table from college rugby’s top-flight.

In the seventh week of matches Trinity’s loss to Downing lands them in the relegation mix while Jesus’s handsome defeat of Catz heats up the chase for the top spots.

Jesus 58 – 0 Catz

Jesus shrugged off their recent injury crisis to dismantle Catz 58-0 in their final game of the term.

The first half, shortened to 30 minutes at the visitors’ request, saw Jesus’ backs run riot. Kouj Tambara, whose name was given some unexpected scrutiny by the referee before the match (“Where did you get a name like that mate”), crossed in the left corner to win the first points of the game after just 2 minutes.

Just 3 minutes later Jesus scrum half Ollie Jones sprinted through to score, before Rob Stevens got his first of three tries in the game, evading three Catz tacklers to go over under the posts.

Jesus continued to assert themselves with further tries from Stevens, Ben King, Russell Ramage and Jaimie Miller leaving the score at 41-0 by the end of the 30 minute half.

The second half began in the same vein, Stevens completing his hat-trick and Tambara crossing for his teams’s 9th try of the game.

Midway through the half Jesus made some changes and Catz had their best period, pinning the home side back against their line. Jesus’ indispline at the break down allowed the visitors to exert sustined pressure, their forwards very nearly forcing their first points of the match.

Eventually Jesus broke out, Dom Macklin being denied a stone-wall try for apparently dropping the ball and Ollie Jones finding a hole in the Catz back line to score his team’s final try, leaving the score at 58-0.

Trinity 7-17 Downing

Downing comfortably beat Trinity in a messy game.

Downing started far better of the two teams, scoring a well worked try from
quick ball in the right hand corner as fresher J-P Westgate went over.
Another try followed not long after as Ray Brooks forced his way through
the Trinity defence to score under the posts.

But the game was marred by mistakes from both sides and a terrible referee
who was unable to police the breakdown.

The worst decision of the match came just before half time. Trinity fresher
Rick Totton took a quick penalty just inside the Downing ten metre line and
sprinted for the posts.

He was hauled down just short by Keith Shagyard in
an excellent tackle but the ref blew his whistle to award a penalty try to
the utter bemusement of Downing and surprise of his Trinity team-mates.

These were to be Trinity’s only points of the game and the only time they
showed any threat at all.

Generally the match was tedious in the extreme. Neither team showed any invention as both killed the ball at the breakdown, taking advantage of the clueless ref.

The only spark of the second half came with the introduction of Downing’s Will Winzor. The banterometer was soon in the red as young Winzor responded to Trinity’s incessant complaining about the breakdown by berating the Trinity flanker “Why you crying?” following this up at the next scrum with “Do you need a tissue?”

What followed at the next break of play is probably best described in Winzor’s own words: ‘I tried to stand on some guys face before calling him an idiot and casually slapping around the chops, morcambe and wise-style.”
Downing are still hoping to win the prestigious fair-play award at the end of the season.

The constant infringing at the breakdown from the Trinity pack eventually
led to the sin-binning of flanker Rick Totton, although this decision was
another shocker from the ref as Rick was standing in the back line when
the offence was committed.

Neutral observers were glad to hear the sound of the final whistle after a match containing all the worst aspects of college rugby, with too many mistakes from both teams and a ref hell-bent on killing the game. Hopefully next week’s clash between Jesus and Downing will be of a higher quality.

Girton P – P John’s

Girton’s chance to follow up their destruction of Catz and cause an upset against the league leaders was put on hold after their injuries depleted their squad. Now only 6 points behind Trinity, Girton will still hope that they can survive relegation with 4 games to go next term.

[standings league_id=5 mode=extend]