On an extremely sunny Wednesday 20th October, a very fresh Brunel 2nd team headed across the M4 for their fixture against Reading. An early arrival thanks to some tip-top minibus driving meant there was plenty of time to get out and re-learn all the moves that had been forgotten from training. The 2nds hadn’t yet played together or had a run-out with the full starting line up, but it didn’t take long before we looked like the well-drilled and professional unit we all knew we were.
Reading eventually turned up just before the kick off. Immediately it was clear to see the Brunel pack were going to have a tough day, plenty of their players looking like they’d come straight from the gym/greggs, having a considerable weight advantage over our forwards.
The referee, Freddy Mercury moustache and all, got the game underway, and it was the fiery start everyone had expected it to be – with some memorable first up tackles made by the tooos. Brunel were found fiercely defending their line early on, but thanks to a well set defensive formation it took Reading a while before they eventually went over for the first score – to the much delight of the massive two person crowd who turned up to watch them.
Mabs was given the chance to bring Brunel back into the game with two early penalty attempts, but due to both kicks being right out on the touchline kicking into a swirling wind, sun in eyes he was unable to convert. The 2nds also had to deal with the loss of the key second row Eze because he had broken a toenail or something, and had to be subbed only a quarter into the game.
The rest of the half saw the Brunel pack fighting a gutsy battle against a sizable Reading scrum, winning a few against the head thanks to a technical master class from props Jack and Daniel. However Reading did manage to find a few leaks in the strong defence that had kept Brunel so much into the game. The Reading second rower went over after a pretty unimaginative penalty tap and go. Their 10 looked to be on form sinking the conversion (but don’t worry because he didn’t land another one after this, and got cut in half by a massive tackle from Matt Bennet for all the fruitless showboating he put us through).
Eventually Brunel managed to get themselves on the score sheet, battling their way up the pitch for mabsy to throw an outrageous dummy that opened their D-line easier than the legs on a Brunel netball girl (soz). Straight under the posts… so much so the kick couldn’t go over.
Again the second half was much tackling and scrumaging practice, some textbook tackles from winger Sam Chitabura – often saving the day out on the touchline. The hard battle began to show with the 2nds bench getting full use. Game changing subs from the likes of James Spofford and Selwyn Fok to name a few, came on and gave it their all for the remaining time on the clock. Fatigue began to show as Reading were able to run in two more individual backs tries.
Sadly the inspirational half time team talk wasn’t enough to put more points on the board for Brunel and the second half remained a stalemate from then onwards.
Final score Brunel 2nds 5 – 26 Reading Uni
Over all a very tough first fixture for the 2nds but the team certainly showed up and didn’t back down from the challenge that faced them. A great attitude shown by all, and I’m sure it will be a huge improvement for next week vs St Mary’s!
Special mention to MOTM Adam Geal, fantastic work rate around the park.