Purbeck School 12 Winton School 12

With the game ‘touch and go’, thanks to Storm Ciaran, the pitch was playable and what a game of rugby it was graced with by both sides on a wet and soggy afternoon.

Co-captain Harry Humphreys won the toss and elected to play into the Tsunami first half. With Purbeck up against it right from the get go, with the only way to clear their lines being running the ball. They did this extremely successfully 10 minutes in, setting pods directly off scrum half and bulldozering their way through up the pitch. This led to a penalty which was kicked to the corner by Noah Evans. From the resulting lineout maul, Harry Humphreys picked and went to be held up over the line, despite Charlie Johnson’s best efforts to drive him over. From the resultant drop out, Winton chased well, regaining possession of the ball and working through the phases. After another Winton centre break through the 12 channel, they worked the ball wide to the full back who scored in the corner. The fly half kicked the extras from the touchline to put Purbeck 0-7 down. Purbeck responded brilliantly working through the phases and powering through to this time drive Harry Humphreys over to score. This was excellently converted by Noah Evans, levelling the score at half time.

The second half was extremely physical with both teams matching each other all over the park. The contact area around the ruck Purbeck were dominating, but Winton kept line breaking through the centres and around the wings. After numerous missed opportunities in the opposition 22, Ernie Trent exploded over, smashing various blue shirts out of his way. 12-7 to Purbeck. Purbeck were then caught napping with the Winton right winger (who looked dangerous all afternoon) side stepping and powering through to level the scored. With the Winton kicker under pressure, he narrowly missed the conversion past the left hand upright.

With the game epically poised, Purbeck then battered the Winton line, only to be turned over at vital points to allow Winton to clear. In the final play of the game, Purbeck worked the ball from a lineout with Kane Adams marauding through the midfield setting a president. After about 20 phases, Ieuen Griffiths found himself being driven towards the line, mauling the ball to Ernie Trent who scored, only for the try to be disallowed as Ieuen played the ball once tackled. Not the perfect ending but an epic game in hard conditions. To name a Man of the Match was very difficult but just for tenacious tackling and strong ball carrying this was shared between Kane Adams and Regan Norman. A special mention to Kieran Taylor, who played his first ever game of rugby for the school and didn’t look out of place.

Mr Tarbard (pictures courtesy of Jacob Snell, Year 13)

Team: K. Adams, G. Korczowski, H. Humphreys, R. Norman, C. Johnson, J. Duncan, D. Wiggins, E. Williams-Hall, F. Towers, N. Evans, E. Dallimore, H. Brown, H. Crouch, O. Helas, F. Retson, K. Taylor, T. Youldon, R. Lovell.