The damp windy air blistered over the goose droppings of Kings House playing fields on Saturday as Quintin lined up against their opponents, Old Streetonian’s. Having played each other in the league for many a year these two teams were no strangers, at least in name, the renewed size of both team sheets suggested plenty of new faces.
Winning the toss, Old Street’s opted to play into the wind and received the kick-off, but Quintin flew out the blocks and the early pressure told with a knock on and scrum to the boys in green and red. Now, it must be said, despite the late addition of El Tari allowing Quintin to field a contested scrum Amaan & Adam were never going to tip the scales as they lined up against a tight head who probably weighed the same as them combined. Somehow, the ball arrived at the back of this scrum and Quintin pressured their way to Street’s try line where screams of ‘oh god no’ echoed – from the home players & supporters - as Martin Holley finally scored his first competitive try. For any Old boys reading this, we deeply apologise.
Old Street’s came close to returning the favour but after a sterling bit of try line defence and a valiant turnover Quintin came back into possession. However, rather than simply clearing the lines, Will Carter & Slade Siameja must’ve shared a sideways glance that could spell nothing other than ‘the boys are on here’ and, like a knife through hot butter, carved their way toward the opposition 22. Despite a good try saving tackle from Old Streets on Joe Thornton the resulting lineout was stolen by Quintin and sent Steve crashing over for his third in two games.
Despite some lovely backs play for Matt Callow’s try and El’s no-nonsense smash and grab in the corner Old Streets found a way to grab two back from set piece play leaving the half time score at 20-12.
The began to be more contested with Street’s scoring first from a penalty try off the back of Quintin’s makeshift scrum and Matt ‘007’ Wallace attempting to kill the ball. 20-19. The game evolved into somewhat of an arm-wrestle and the scrums going to uncontested as Amaan’s valiant effort at hooker left his back in pieces. Quintin picked up some well needed umph as veteran Charles Matthews barrelling Steve over the line for his second of the game and fourth of the season.
The tension and Quintin were a long way off being comfy. That is, until a sliced kicked from Old Street’s 10 allowed Carter to fly onto the loose ball and dot down between the sticks. The scoring didn’t end there though as debutant Jake Samson latched onto a clearance kick deep into the Quintin half and stepped is way through 3 or 4 of Street’s players to grab the final try of the game, converted by Mr Beige to bring the final score to 41-20. We won’t pass comment on the melee at the end that earned debutant Arran a red card, which we’re sure will earn him a deserved ban.
Try scorers:
Martin Holley
David ‘Steve’ McClelland x2
Matt Callow
El Tari
Will Carter
Jake Samson
Motm – El Tari
Dotd – Arran Woodward
