Saturday 1 September 2012
Friendly
Minety warm up
Gosford All Blacks 53pts – Minety 31pts
Minety gained valuable match practice with a pre-season friendly against Gosford All Blacks in Kidlington on Saturday.
Minety fielded a mixed side of first and second team players in a game organised as a trial, with rolling substitutions. Both sets of forwards struggled initially with the new laws on engagement at the scrums, but eventually settled down to their task.
Even with several players out of position, Minety dominated the scrums and lineouts and demonstrated some promising moves in open play. Ball retention in the contact area was a problem, though, as was fitness. With the visitors visibly tiring, the home side ran away with the game in the last 10 minutes, scoring two late converted tries.
The All Blacks were the first to score and eventually ran in a total of nine tries, of which they converted four.
Minety’s first half points came from inside centre Luke Radcliffe, who ran in two tries and kicked two conversions, and flyhalf Dave Church, who chipped the opposition and won the ensuing race to touch the ball down for a try.
The score stood at 29-19 at half-time.
Church scored another try for Miney in the second half and Radcliffe added a further conversion, but there was also a try from scrumhalf Duncan Simpson in his first game for the club.
Minety begin their league campaign with two home games this Saturday. The firsts play hosts to Calne while the seconds take on Swindon thirds.
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