Warriors 62 Launceston 0
By Frank Stormont
May 1 2006
Eight players score points in the warm up to Saturday's match against Quins
A fast game with Warriors achieving 48 points in the first half before slowing down slightly and adding only two converted tries in the second half. The Warriors worked well as a team and some were looking to impress Mr Dawe prior to selection for Saturday's end of season match at the Stoop. Nine tries showed that the development team were looking to compete with the 55 to 7 victory the first team had on Saturday.
The Warriors pressure started from the first whistle with Launceston keeping the play off the try line for a couple of minutes before the Maul went over with Brett Luxton claiming the points. Within 3 minutes there were more points on the board when Nick Defty converted a penalty. Nick was key in the next score as he broke through the Launceston defence and passed to Brett Stroud to score a try which was then converted. Nic Rouse became the third forward to score this time under the posts and quickly after Mat Albina picking the ball up from the back of a ruck ran around to take the points himself.
It looked for a short time that the game was going to get very physical but 6 or 7 long blows on the whistle by the ref and long discussions with captains and forwards seemed to calm it down a bit. Then with a lineout against the head and a driving maul allowed Chris Lowrie to score his try and with a conversion by Nick Defty brought the score to 36 to nil in less than half an hour. Launceston's winger, Baz Hocking, height and strength allowed him on several occasions to break through Tom's tackles although he never made it to the line.
Nick Defty then broke through the Launceston line on his own 22 and ran diagonally across the pitch to just make the corner before being tackled to add another 5 points. A pass from Nat was intercepted by Launceston and knocked back over the try line and touched down for a 5 metre scrum which gave Darren Ritchie on the wing to add his points to the total and brought the half time score to 48 - 0. The same score for the whole match last time the teams met.
The second half started with the same flourish as the first with Chris Lowrie off the back of a maul passing to Nat Saumi and then to Nick for his second try of the match. A series of penalties awarded against Warriors for holding on still failed to give Launceston any points. Then on the Launceston 22 from the back of the scrum Mat, still showing the black eyes from last week, circled around several players before being stopped just short of the line.
Baz Hocking beat Tom Arscott to a kick forward from Warriors and then ran straight at Tom laying him flat out. Tom was heard to say after being replaced "He didn't go down". Jon Fabian was passed the ball 15 metres out and after a readjustment he went over by the side of the posts to complete the score at 62 - 0.
Although Warriors looked as though they would score a number of times nothing came of them. Launceston awarded a penalty on their own 22 kicked for touch but Jonny Marlin kept it in and we thought that the counter attack would result in points but no. Chris Lowrie breaks through from his own 22 and after running to the half way line kicked forward, he was joined by Nat Saumi but the ball bounced badly and a knock on was awarded against us.
With 5 minutes to go Launceston seemed to have decided that they now wanted some points and spent most of the time in Warriors 22. When a driving maul was judged to have been pulled down on the 5 metre by Warriors the ref played what seemed like a minute of advantage before awarding a penalty but no score resulted. Four more penalties to Launceston still failed to give them points. the match finished when Launceston were judged to crossed and the ball was quickly kicked into touch for the final whistle.
Warriors: Jon Fabian, Darren Ritchie, Nat Saumi(Ross Allen), Arran Cruickshanks, Tom Arscott(Jonny Marlin), Nick Defty, Matias Albina(Matt Newman), Alister Livesey(Andrew Williams), James Owen(Stewart Pearl), T Mathias, Brett Luxton(Brin Jenkins), Nic Rouse(Tom Ireland), Brett Stroud, Ben Rowntree, Chris Lowrie Scores Tries Brett Luxton, Brett Stroud, Chris Lowrie, Darren Ritchie, Jon Fabian, Matias Albina, Nic Rouse, Nick Defty (2) Pens: Nick Defty Convs: Nick Defty (7)