Mentone 15’s Tournament
St Kevin’s travelled to Mentone Grammar on Sunday, entering the 1st XV and 2nd XV into division 1 of the 15’s tournament.
The Seconds expected a challenging day of rugby playing above their respective division, although Scotch College and Geelong Grammar proved far too good, the 2nd team performed well against Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne High. A special mention must go to Tom Appleby who was one of the best on the field in his first game of rugby. And to Edward Ung who played well above his weight and put his body on the line for the team.
The 1st XV were sloppy and unfocussed early in the day, playing far below their ability. However, some good pieces of play and some individual brilliance enabled SKC to scrape through with a 7 - 6 win over Scotch College and a 5 - 0 win over Melbourne High. Unhappy with our performance and after sound advice from Mr Pain and Mr Hutchison, SKC fired up defeating Geelong Grammar 27 - 0 and Melbourne Grammar 19 - 0. Finding themselves in another Scotch - St Kevin’s final.
With several Kevinians unable to play in the final, SKC knew they had a challenging game ahead. Scotch came out strong, as they always do, playing aggresively and put SKC on the back foot early, but after finding their rythmn SKC played strictly to the game plan. Darcy Etrich’s strategic kicking and the forwards tight Post defence, specifically from Daniel Meddi and Jack De Guingand, enabled SKC to take control of the game. Darcy Etrich Scored in the Corner and converted, scoring the only points in the game, SKC 7 - Scotch 0.
The 1st XV should be happy with the way they developed throughout the day, but it is important that we take what we learnt in the tournament with us throughout the season. The tournament emphasised how important an ordered warm up is to the result of the game “its starts at the warm up”. Also, many penalties early in the day, and a red card later in the day is an indication that we must be more disciplined throughout the season.
Alex Gyles
