Wurenlos U18 (26) V Zug U18 (27)
4th September 2016.

Kick Off: 13:00
Referee: Stefan Gisler.

The season Curtain raiser for the Zug Rugby Club U18’s was an away fixture against Wurenlos.
After only 1 full training session the U18’s took to the field with a full team of 15 and 6 substitutes, 4 backs and 2 forwards.

The game commenced with some early exchanges and many of last year’s U16 champions knew that they were in for a tougher more physical game than anything from the 2015/16 season. The deadlock was broken when the George Monk slotted home the first of two penalties.

Wurenlos replied with a try soon after the retake, but missed the conversion. It is fair to say that Zug were struggling to make the tackles count and rather than take the tackles below the waist, body tackles were being shrugged off by a very physical Wurenlos.
The attacking game of Zug was remained strong and trademark considered with a short move from the half way line where off the back of a ruck Jack passed to George who put Thomas I playing inside centre into space and he dominated two tackles before driving at full speed over the line to score Zug’s first try, under the posts. George converted.
Wurenlos replied with a converted try soon after the restart, this was following some dubious refereeing (the first of many throughout game of one sided decision making) A penalty was awarded to Wurenlos who chose to run the ball off a forward pass, the forwards drove over the line and despite Alex Persson putting his body on the line, by diving under the Wurenlos forwards drive, clearly holding the ball up, the referee awarded the try, and Wurenlos converted.
Zug were not finished in the first half, following a line out on the Wurenlos 10 metre line won by Wurenlos, the scrum half who could only pass off his right hand turned his back on play to feed the a 20 yard pass to the Fly half, Emmi Collet spotted it before the scrum half had passed it, ran in to intercept and run in Zug’s second try, George converted.

Half time score, Wurenlos 12 Zug 17.

The second half kicked off and Zug were penalised time after time, for off side, for foul play in the line outs, in the scrum, despite the Wurenlos tight head binding on the Zak’s arm, pulling him down and driving upwards. The team were immense and dispelled attack after attack, Wurenlos took advantage of the penalty count and found our try line and converted.

Jil Gillman came on for the second half and immediately made some excellent tackles, making the Wurenlos backline think about moving the ball through the backs.
Our forwards continued to pick and drive, and reached the 5 metre line where Charlie Papamichael found the dependable Thomas D who drove over the line for Zug’s third try, George converted.

The penalty count continued against Zug and Wurenlos continued to take territory advantage and finally drove over the line score their forth try and converted.
With 15 minutes to go, the game control for Zug came into play and whilst a penalty was awarded to Zug in kicking range of George Monk, Charlie took in on himself to take a quick penalty knowing Wurenlos were not 10 Metres, gained 8 yards and was awarded another Penalty. George stood up and kicked the penalty to take a 1 point lead.

The last 10 minutes of the second half continued as it had for much of the last 30 minutes, penalty after penalty followed by strong Wurenlos forward play, the tackles from Zug were now raining in and the resolute refusal to allow them over the line. The last play of the game was called and Wurenlos during an attack from 10 metres out, knocked the ball on, for Zug to take their first win of the season.

All 21 players contributed fantastically, with special mentions to Gijs, Jack and Thomas I, who all left the field nursing injuries. This was a difficult opening game, in many ways, however the team performed excellently to register our first win, and record played 1 won 1.

4th Sept 2016.