Greenville 41 Knoxville 15

You know it’s going to be a long day when the first points against you are a pushover try. The boys from Knoxville were fired up for a big game against our long-time rivals, with visions of play-off glory in our heads. But alas the Greenville pack had other ideas and choked the life out of us at set plays. And thanks to the 12-4 penalty count in the first half they had plenty of set plays to work with. Our game plan was to stop the line-out maul (we did), stop the maul in open play (we did well enough) and avoid giving Greenville lineouts at all costs … this bit went to hell in a handbasket. With so little good ball to work with, our backs did well to score one try out wide from turnover ball (thanks Lucas) and Jallo slotted a penalty to send us in at halftime with a respectable scoreline of K8-G15.

The talk was mostly positive at halftime as we tried to adjust to the Greenville scrum “machine” and the ref’s calls. However it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off in the second half …

With back to back send-offs in the early part of the second half (one richly deserved, the other somewhat questionable) it was always going to be a very tough ask for the Possums. Greenville made the most of it and ran all over us with tries from their forwards and backs. In the end they ran afoul of the ref also and had a couple of guys sent off, which allowed us to finally put some sustained pressure on them inside their 22 and Mike W slid off the side of a ruck for our final points.

The final score was Greenville 41 – The Ref 36 (Knoxville 20 penalties, Greenville 12 + 4 send-offs) – Knoxville 15. In all honesty though, all my ref digs aside, Greenville was by far the better team on the day and deserve to go on and represent us all at the next level. We will always look forward to our Greenville games because win or lose I know that our side always learns something from it; and that the beer is always cold and the pizza is always hot: and that we come away better for it. That’s what rugby is about for me. So go get’em Griffins .. do us proud!!

Thanks to all the guys who travelled down. There’s not been too many times this season that we’ve had more guys than jerseys, but hopefully it is a problem that will continue through the fall and into next spring. I think our selection process needs a little work, but noone could doubt that having to compete for your spot is good for our club. Get guys out there for 7′s, get guys out there for summer touch season, let’s build a B-side AND a U-23 side and rock the house next spring.

A special thanks also to the brave supporters who travelled down to cheer us on. I may have been too drunk on the bus to remember who you were but we appreciate you just the same.