The Year 10 boys played out a spectacular match at the Lower School Fortress on Tuesday after school. From the first whistle the tackles were flying in from both teams in a really close and well contested game. After some much needed defensive work at training on Monday night, the Saints defence was superb, but eventually the deadlock was broken by a well worked Castle Rushen forward pack. But straight from kick off the mighty red and blacks got a penalty under the sticks, which Ffinlo Thomas took quickly, then drop kicked between the sticks! The Saints continued to look strong in attack with some great running from Ronin Murray, Josh Corran and Thomas Lamb, and it was Thomas who went over for our first try, with Corran slotting home the conversion. The southerners came back though and had two try attempts held up on the line before they finally went over and converted. Half time score was 10-14 to the visitors.
In the 2nd half, Castle Rushen started strong and had the better in the scrum following a few substitutions, going over to go 21-10 up with 15 mins to play. But the Saints never gave up, and a quite brilliant try was scored when Illiam Thomas spotted space out wide and delivered an inch perfect cross-field kick, which Corran took without breaking stride and went over in the corner. Castle Rushen then had a couple of chances to put the game beyond SNHS but more resolute defending kept the score to a 6 point lead. With only 4 minutes left, the ball was dropped in midfield and Murray scooped up, beat 5 or 6 sky blue defenders and went over under the posts! Corran converted to win the game for the Saints 22-21 in a game for the ages!
Well done to both teams for putting on such a gutsy performance that could have gone either way.