Rats 14 ? Slime 11
How about them Rats beating the Green Slime ? Randwick?
It?s just as well Brett Sheehan pulled that 45 metre penalty kick from out of his bum with 2 minutes to go to win it for the Rats. It was amends for falling asleep at a Rats? scrum in the first half. The Randwick half back Phibbs, tidied the ball up for Sheehan as nice as pie, and took it about 40 metres to score.
The Slime?s ace goal kicker, Stephen Hoiles, missed the fairly easy conversion, but they were ahead 8-0 after 20 minutes.
And bloody hell, Clint Eadie got carted off needing spare ribs. I thought the Rats were goners because he?s a top club player and the goal kicker. Who ran on with a big blue thing around his thigh as the replacement but Mark Gerard, whose hamstring was so dodgy he didn?t start. He had to play because winger Willie Bishop from the Oz 7s team pulled out of the game on Saturday morning because of diarrhoea.
Prop Salesi Ma?afu had to go off with a sore back and Pingi T, who had played the whole game in 2nd grade, had to front up for another hour at that point. There was nobody happier to get a yellow card rest for a handbag push away than the young fella. It was in retaliation for Phibbs throwing fists. He had a rest also.
The Rats scrum got mullered and they had to make 186 tackles in the match. Despite missing a few of them they covered up the cracks all day and the Slime couldn?t get the pill over the line.
It was 8-8 and Sheehan put over a penalty with about 7 minutes to go, but straight after the Randwick flyhalf by the name of? Josh Valentine, kicked a sweet droppie to tie it up 11-11. Then came the winning penalty as described, when the dirty rotten Slime cheat, Ben Mowen, killed the pill once too often in the 78th minute.
Patrick Phibbs had a terrific game for Randwick but got a bad leg injury in the last play of the match and had to be assisted off the park by Brumbies team mate Gerrard from the angelic Rats. Phibbs was probably the MOTM in a losing team but his direct opponent Brett Sheehan was tops also.
That was a good effort from the home team after their unlucky 59-0 loss to the Slime in Rd.8, though it won?t stop biased Randwick supporters from whingeing that their injured winger Ratu Nasiganiyavi would have made a difference.
What?s he ever done against the mighty Rats?
Beasts 62 ? Pirates 25
Some may call that score showing off but geez the Beasties are going to give a bit of cheek in the finals with form like that. West Harbour is just about down and out and it won?t get any easier because Sidey is heading off this week to play in Wales where there be Dragons.
Gordon 39 Manly 26
Gordon, keep on playing above their weight and I keep waiting for them to be put back in their place, but except against Uni recently, they keep coming up with the wins.
It was a good effort for Manly to come back after being 0-26 down at oranges but they are playing good rugby by halves too much this year. What they need is 2 good halves in the same game. Apparently Leon Bott had some good touches but didn?t get much pill from his mates nor leeway from the Highlanders.
Penrith 27 Southern Districts 20
Despite a blinder from their 7 Terry Autagavia , there were too may arm tackles and too much indiscipline from the Rebels; so the men from the mountain got home. The only stir the Rebels will make this year will be with the wooden spoon.
Sydney Uni 29 Woodies 17
Eastwood were down 0-17 within as many minutes and were behind 0-29 at oranges. Then they scored 17 unanswered points in the 2nd half, including 3 tries. They dominated territory and possession, helped partly by a couple of cards to the students; but too many turnovers and a few injuries thwarted their efforts to overcome the deficit.
One of the Eastwood injuries activated the 2007 Oz A Schools no.8 Lachlan McCaffery from the bench. I thought he was a tad unlucky not to make the Oz Schools 1st XV and wonder how well he?ll go in his senior career.
Uni are 8 points ahead of the field now and cruising. Apparently the Uni front row is causing a lot of cheek in the scrums, Al Campbell played for 80 minutes in his comeback game and 8 Tim Davidson is making every post a winner to take over Lyons? Tahs? contract.
Norths 37 Two Blues 36
Bloody hell ? how stiff were Parramatta scoring 6 tries (including 2 to TPN) to 4 by Norths, but losing. The Norths hero was their 12 Chris Burnett who converted all their tries and kicked 3 penalties including one to take the lead on the bell. But at least Parra got 2 bonus points.
PS Uni are playing the Rats on Saturday night under their newly installed lights at No.1 Oval. Kick off is at 7:30pm. Good luck finding a park.
