Varsity - U19 v West Carroll

The Varsity Exiles dropped a heart-breaker to the West Carroll Marauders 24-25 or 27 depending on who was counting. Regardless, it is the first L for the Exiles in a league match in the last couple years. Just like last year, the Marauders were well prepared and anxious to play the Exiles who they had not beaten in five years. I arrived at the pitch around 4:30 PM and their entire team was already on the field working on set plays; establishing forward pods and working their backs with the forwards. Kick off was delayed from 5:30 to 6:15PM due to the heavy traffic that delayed our arrival as well as the referees.

West Carroll came out strong but were met by stiff resistance by the Exiles. Several Exiles had nice runs including Aiden Perrenoud, Charlie Martel and Noah Lucas. However, we just could not seal the attack with as try but the constant pressure had us in their side of the field in the first 25 minutes of the half and led to West Carroll mistakes allowing Nathaniel Turak to convert two of three penalty attempts. West Carroll seemed to like to run into their forwards which helped stymie their own attack - while the Exiles had a balanced attack of pick & goes among the forwards and swinging the ball out wide so the wings and full back were getting ball and keeping West Carroll off balance. The Marauders were finally able to score in the 28th minute but failed to convert. Right at the end of the half Adam Tounkara powered the ball to match them and the half ended with the Exiles up 11-5.

A close score but though West Carroll was playing tough; the Exiles had a number of chances to score multiple times. Turnovers stymied no less than nine attack phases in the first half. Two of our balls were poached in rucks; a mishandled ball on a kickoff, a penalty for scrum exceeding one meter; a ball carrier allowing themselves to be pushed out of bounds instead of passing or cutting inside; and at least four breakaway runs when the ball carrier either did not pass before contact or held the ball too long before trying to pass it out to supporting players. Eliminate those miscues and the Exiles could have been running up the score.

At halftime, Ryan Hunt came in at scrum half and Pierre Marcandella shifted to center. In thre first minute of the new half, Pierre took an off load from another back (who?) and weaved the ball in for a try. Up 16-5, it was starting to look good but the Exiles were not able to get much possession for the next 30 minutes. When they did, West Carroll quickly snuffed out the attack and was able to regain possession of the ball. West Carroll picked up 13 unanswered points to take the lead 18-16 (some had it at 20-16 so I may have missed a conversion on their two trys). One of the Marauder trys was a penalty try that was awarded when an Exile picked up the ball and carried it into the try zone. The kick was from the center but I thought it was muffed to the side. As the clock ticked by, the Exiles seemed to regain their earlier offensive flair, a penalty was awarded and Nathaniel Turak converted to give us 19 points. West Carrol was able to score as two Exiles, Elyes Ammar and Charlies Heim were hobbled by bad cramps. The conversion put them up 19-25 or 27 when in injury time George Fournarakis scored a try after taking a pass. However, the game ended with no conversion attempted.

Plenty for us to learn among them:
1. Two more scrums that went beyond one meter were penalized after being warned in first half. Forwards just need the initial surge, one step and hold.
2. In first half we were moving ball with passes to scrum and forward attack with passes. In second half we started playing Carroll's game - running the ball back into the forwards and taking contact before passing. We won very little ball; and the ball we did get had backs playing too flat on attack.
3. We need to play as one team - not two separate units. For the most part we did this but at times we had clear overlaps that were squandered due to holding the ball until contact instead of swinging the ball out.

Good hard fought match. I'd like to see us play them again.