Sandown & Shanklin RFC kicked off the 2022/23 season hosting New Milton & District RFC at the Fairway Ground in the season opener on Saturday (10th September).
Before kick-off, a minute’s silence was observed following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The home side started the brighter of the 2 teams, as they looked to get their expansive game plan flowing against the visitors. Early pressure resulted in Wightfibre Man of the Match, Harvey Kirkby, kicking a penalty for a 3 – 0 lead after a quarter-of-an-hour. The Hurricanes looked to extend their lead; however, New Milton boxed clever and looked to compete and disrupt the hosts’ momentum. This strategy paid off, as a pass was intercepted for the New Milton centre to streak home and score, with a successful conversion following (3 – 7).
With the Hurricanes chasing the scoreboard, they looked to get back into the game. Strong carrying from Darren Carew was helping get the home side up the field and when the ball made its way out to the Wedderkop brothers on the wings, they were causing the opposing defence plenty of issues. Sustained pressure resulted in another penalty, which Kirkby kicked to cut the deficit to 6 – 7, at the halftime interval.
Half time: Sandown & Shanklin 6 – 7 New Milton & District
Following the halftime break, New Milton started the more energetic and eventually managed to extend their lead, again exploiting Sandown & Shanklin’s mistakes again to score a try in the corner (6 – 12).
The home side rallied and tired as they could not break the resilient New Milton defence. Despite the tireless work of the Miselbach brothers and Sam Rees, and a yellow card to the opposition centre, the home side could not breach the visitor’s defensive line. As Sandown were banging the door down, a forced pass was telegraphed and the New Milton winger streaked away to score another intercept try (6 – 17). This was then shortly followed up by a New Milton penalty, capitalising on further Hurricanes errors (6 – 20).
The hosts moved back up the field and did manage to cut the gap with a well-worked driving maul working up to the try line and allowing Darren Carew to dive over and score (11 – 20). This was negated a moment later with a final coup de grâce from the away team, with one further try in the final moments of the 80 minutes
Full time: Sandown & Shanklin 11 – 25 New Milton & District
After the game, Hurricanes’ Director of Rugby Damien Marriott said:
“Really disappointing to lose our opening game of the season, although congratulations to New Milton, who were deserved winners on the day, their defence was excellent. We have plenty of positives to take from this that we will work on in training, and I’m certain the lads will learn and improve from this game.”
Sandown & Shanklin are on the road next week to Millbrook RFC on Saturday 17th September. The 2nd XV begin their 2022-23 campaign hosting Christchurch RFC 2nd XV at the Fairway Ground.
