Round 13 Vikings vs Kempsey Cannonballs

The ground was soft but the hits were hard in the Hastings Valley Vikings First XV match against Kempsey Cannonballs won 43 – 26 by the Viking team.

Kempsey stuck it to their more fancied rivals with some vicious defence especially in the backline. After leading comfortably the Cannons came storming back into the match early in the second half to have the game on a knife edge at 28-26 before the final Viking onslaught saw them score the last 15 points of the match.

The Viking pack overpowered their Kempsey rivals having their scrum on rollerskates going backwards in the very muddy conditions. The forward dominance was summed up by the tryscorers all being forwards. A hat trick to front rower Jeremy Segol, two to Number 8 Oscar Maleli and the final rolling maul try to hooker Hamish McCormack.

Although not on the score sheet second rower Aaron Lee had a whale of a game coming in as a late replacement and working tirelessly for the entire match. He was a standout best on ground. Special mention needs to be made of centre pairing Matt Fieldsend and Harry Sargent who were both called on to do some tough defence and neither shirked the heavy contact. Both took some big and not always legal hits. Fieldsend’s opposite eventually received a red card from the referee.

Snowy Kennedy will need to practice kicking goals from in front of the posts at training as he didn’t get a chance to do so during the match kicking 5 conversions and a penalty all from tough positions.

Reserve Grade won 34-10 showing teamwork and resolve to wear down their opposition and now lead that competition. 18’s lost 16-0 while 16’s triumphed 22-10. 14’s had a bye round.

Captain Lyndon Gale and coach Hamish McCormack

Aaron & Oscar