6th APRIL 2019
EASTERN SUBURBS ROOSTERS vs HARLEQUINS
The Eastern Suburbs Roosters came off the back of a magnificent first-up win against the Uni Red Men with a hard-fought win against a never-say-die Harlequins in Round 2 of this years competition.
The Roosters were without some significant players, but Coach Jason Parremore shuffled the team around to produce a competitive team, with good, experienced players playing out of position. Unfortunately he didn’t count on one of our most experienced, Chris Munns coming down with an injury in the warm-up.
But we were blessed with the return from a three week retirement of our much loved and respected Veteran Marc “Wiggy” Whitfield.
The game started disastrously with a try to the Quins in the first two minutes. Our boys were all at sea, trying to make the new combinations work.
After the early shock, the boys settled down to play some dour football. Attacking strongly, having lots of posession, but not quite able to break the Quin’s defence.
In the 32nd minute, Captain Jake Hyland finally wove his magic and scored a try which he converted to take the Roosters to a 7 – 5 half time lead.
The Roosters were forced to defend early in the second half. The game became scrappy and very hard fought, until 15 minutes in, when Jake had a go at a penalty goal, but his trusty boot failed him.
Five minutes later, Jake was presented with another opportunity, this time making no mistake, taking the score to 10 – 5.
With about 15 minutes to go, disaster struck again when the Quins ran in a hard try, with winger Mo putting his body on the line, but getting run over. The score was 10 all, and once again, the Rooster faithful were worried.
The never-say-die Roosters weren’t finished with yet. The scrum was holding firm, and with 10 minutes to go, Jake tried his hand again. From a good scrum, Jake sold a couple of nice dummies and went over under the posts. How he converted was a mystery, but it happened. 17 -10 Roosters.
Time to bury the opposition. But not yet. With 3 minutes to go, the Quins scored again under the posts. The Rooster family held their breath. Somehow, the conversion missed. 17 -15 Roosters.
The Quins kept coming, but relief came with them in attack, but a scrum feed to the Roosters saw the game out.
The best players judged by independent people were:
3 votes Jake Hyland
2 votes Marc Whitfield
1 vote Bo Horton
King Rooster Jonathon “Gobbles” Elliott. Great effort everybody.
Written by Les Marshall.
Click on the thumbnails below to view the photos.
