We travelled to Inglewood to play our last game of the round.
It was unusual situation for us as we were picked as favourites to win for the first time this season. We had a strong squad with the inclusion of Kevin Brown - a new utility player from Manchester, England arriving Thursday morning and straight to training and into the starting line up at centre which wasn't ideal for his preparation…off set with the loss of Thomas Kalin who answered an SOS to help out when we had a bad run of injuries and added plenty on his arrival showing he's in a good space of his life playing outstanding rugby on attack and defence to give the boys a huge lift after a few narrow losses.
Thanks TK we are sure it won't be your last game of the season but understand your commitment to the FDMC 1st XV as head coach and we wish him all the best in that endeavour.
After a real good outing against Clifton, confidence was high. We knew Inglewood would provide a stern opposition especially if we didn't hit our straps.
The early exchanges started well and we got out to a 3-0 lead to a 38 metre penalty to Jackson Sinclair.
From the kick off Inglewood hit their mojo and stretched us on a number occasions to lead by 14-3.
Slowly but surely we worked our way back into the game and after a beautiful worked try to Kobe Sinclair that was disallowed for the reason, we aren't sure, we scored two that were awarded one to Kevin Brown and the other to Kusi Druana to give us a one point lead at halftime.
Inglewood were finding too many holes in our defence which was discussed at halftime and our error rate was a lot higher due to poorly directed passes and things not sticking like 7 days prior.
Jeremy Newell did some huge defence in the first half and one memorable run when fielding the ball in the first half and charging back 20 metres at full pace and hitting the defence line with no care to his own safety which gave the team a huge lift.
The second half was alot more of the same with Inglewood hitting the front and with a early penalty to lead 17-15 before we scored two tries to Luka Cassidy after a great break by Kobe Sinclair showing great vision with a excellent cross field kick to Luka who crashed over to score a very well worked try and lastly another one to Kusi after some good forwards and backs continuity using his evasive tatics and pace to dot down for his second try.
Inglewood scored late to make it a final score of 29-24 a 3rd consecutive win to the Coast but far less convincing as the week before and leaving us one point out of the top four as the second round starts next week.
For the Coast nobody played badly everyone had there moments but errors were too high and missed opportunities were the order of the day.
Mathew Picard had some strong runs along with Newell and Beni Kalin .
Defence was lead by Kalin, Newell and captain Chris Gawler and Kobe Sinclair and Logan Crowley making some timely defence at crucial times.
Our player of the day was Kobe Sinclair who made some huge carries and linked with Kusi and Kevin, Jeremy scored 2 points and one to captain Chris. The bench gave good impact and kept the energy levels up in the dying stages until the final whistle.
Lastly, Gerard Kalin, our manager had a tough week we wish him a speedy recovery. Hope it hasn't dampened your sense of humour and the boys will miss your top service good chat and your good looks for a few weeks.
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