Author Archives: Paul Clarke

Ealing Exiles have the most successful game of the season so far with too many tries to accurately acknowledge all the scorers. Jareth Keenan reports!

After the original team sheet had 23/24 players, 14 Exiles appeared in the changing room with 15 minutes to kick off (apparently due the change of kick off time). Quintin were down a front row, so a sporting Exile side offered to lend a hand which was politely declined.  Because of this Quintin had to play with 14 players in line with the league rules and an uncontested scrum. I personally am quite disappointed by this as I believe we had a very strong forward side in which we could have potentially turned over a lot of the ball.

•  T scored an improvement of 7/10 in the T-out of ten weekly rating. Maybe it would have been higher if he had arrived before kick off.
• Stefs weasel moment of the week was stealing a try when Alistair (who had been supporting him from the halfway line) was begging for the ball. Maybe you should take a lesson from that kind man who gave Eff his try.
• James had some very good kicks this week converting 7/8 tries I think :s
• If anyone knows what the finger pointing was when Alex K was doing when going to score his first try, please inform me, maybe I just don’t understand but I did find it quite disturbing.

Exiles squad came close to beating GWR for the first time in many matches, but sadly lost as GWR were awarded and successfully kicked a penalty in the last play of the game. Gutted Nick Greenhalgh reports from the back row.

Probably the worst effort in timeliness of the season by the Exiles, seems many Exiles are completely unable to read a time from an email and realise that it means what it says. At 2:00pm the due KO time we probably had about 10 players. Fortunately for us so did GWR. Both sides were thankful of the ref delaying KO by about 20 mins while we awaited those menacing stragglers.

We kicked off and entered about 15 minutes of brutal rugby where we were very much on the back foot and would typically have let several tries in. I had to leave the pitch for a few minutes after my ribs took a pounding from a tackle that I am not sure was in any acceptable law book. However, I am probably just moaning as my ribs are still giving me grief this morning. We managed to stave off the GWR attacks until about 15 mins in when one of their blunder buses got some momentum and fired through a ruck to and then continued another ten yards or so avoiding Exile defence to score a nice try.

Exiles heads did not drop, the tackling and our own attacks started to gain in strength. When we maintained possession things were looking good and we were making territory. Several phases of forward attacks took us close to their try line, where thankfully white line fever didn’t set in and we did manage to set up a final clean phase which saw Steve Richards getting the ball down for our first try. Sadly the kick was missed and we found ourselves at 5 – 7 down.

The fast paced play continued and the forwards found themselves getting more ball that usual as our scrum half of the day Alex K had recently returned from a 4 or may be 5 week holiday in NZ where fitness improvement may not have been the main goal. Several rucks ensued with no scrummy present. Though when Alex was there the backs did get some good ball, don’t want you all thinking he did a bad job now. Greg L took full advantage of not letting the backs get the ball from these rucks, putting in some nice crash moves on the open and blind areas of there rucks. The second half saw a tactical move of getting the youthful fitter Joe S into the no.9 slot where he too had fun in Stef’s absence.

The next try came in from the oppo despite valiant attempts by several Exiles to hold it up. Sadly the ref and indeed some Exiles saw it was a valid try. Others didn’t and Fabio took his frustrations out on the ball, hoofing it into the local council estate where it will no doubt spend the rest of it’s days. He will be providing a replacement in the very near future and will endeavour to be more controlled, won’t you Fabio! GWR failed to convert the try, and thankfully didn’t moan about any illegal ball changes! So things were still within reach.

We nearly conceded another try as an opportunistic GWR player managed to put in a series of down pitch kicks and chases that were only just thwarted by the pace of Andy M and Joe S who tore after it and him. The ball thankfully was kicked over the deadball line and we took a 22. James H spotted an empty area about 15 yards out from their line and did a masterful kick to bring us right back into their red zone, cracking kick. Then the usual suspect Jareth managed to make sure his try counter kept ticking by falling over the try line with a ball Joe selflessly passed out when he could quite easily have scored himself. Such a gentleman! Jareth’s rendition of his try deviated from this somewhat, but then again it would, wouldn’t it . James H earned his money this afternoon by slotting this conversion through the uprights.

At 12 – 12 with the clock winding down several of the team were being affected by the feeling the ref was seemingly allowing the oppo far more creeping offside and more lee way in the rucks. Tempers were shortening. This did us no favours. You can’t change the way the ref is going to ref the match by loosing your temper. You need to just put more effort into what you can do, and do that better. To be fair GWR were the more dominant in the loose and legally turned over a great deal of our loose ball. They were typically in pairs at each breakdown before we had support and it seems their training actually pays dividends as they were ripping plenty of ball of us.

As the final whistle was about to blow someone gave away a kick-able penalty and yup they kicked it! As it passed through the uprights full time was blown and we lost the game. A truly gutting result. Exiles defence was pretty strong for the most part of the game. Good to have Eff and Alex back from their World Cup jollies. Several backs ran some good lines under pressure, and caught all the high kicks the oppo tried to stuff down their necks in open play. Yet again though we failed to catch most of the restarts, which is as ever loosing us way too much territory! Frustrations here and there in the latter part of the second half of the game, I believe led us to this disappointing conclusion. The one positive is that I know we can do better, and I am looking forward to our next local derby with the boys from GWR, when hopefully for the first time in many matches we might end up with more points than them.

FYI – uploaded some days gone by Exiles albums where you’ll see many of this Saturday’s squad back in 2002 and 2003, we haven’t changed a bit!

• 2003 Feb 11th Exiles v Kilburn Cosmos
• 2002 March 8th Exiles v London Welsh

Tries:
Steve Richards
Jareth Keenan

Cons:
James Hitchcock

Team and roughly remembered positions:
James Hitchcock (15)
Andy Madden (11)
Greg Life (1)
David Morgan (6)
Joe Southwart (13/9)
Alex Kruczkowski (9/14)
Anthony Lynch (4)
Barry Cousins (2)
Clive Lungley (12)
Fabio Krasniqi (2)
Jareth Keenan (10)
Julian Sweeny (8)
Marc Hubbard (5)
Neal Craig (13)
Nick Greenhalgh (7)
Steve Richards (3)
Peter Rank (6)

Fired up Exiles finally win their second league game. Cracking game, 5 tries no cards of any colour v Feltham a feat almost unheard of, almost a perfect storm moment! Nick Greenhalgh reports from the back row.

As usual the start and confluence of Exiles on the hinterlands of Feltham RFC was a sad yet often witnesses Exile morass, typified by Alex A scuttling about on one leg pulling his shorts on by the sideline as the whistle blew for game commencement. Luckily for us our sickness is contagious and Feltham also started a man shy. Both teams were quickly up to a full contingent and the battle started with vigor. The Exiles forwards were well up for scoring tries and we quickly managed to get on the score sheet after several phases of ball down near their line. The first score was from Stef with his trade mark feigning to pass the ball down the line followed up by a cut in and score a la Mark Philips style. Jareth likes to refer to Stef’s try scoring antics as sneaky tries. I think he is concerned now Stef has started scoring he may have some competition in the top try scorers table..

Quickly after the restart we managed to make some good territory and again found ourselves in the red zone. We went through may phases again. Definitely had a lot of forwards stepping up to have a go at crossing the line. However, Feltham defenses were well up to contain the waves of single man attacks. So we started attacking in pods and finally managed to break through. I took the ball from a penalty on the five yard line and veered left taking Jonathan McK me. The oppo seemed to be giving me an assist as during their attempts to wrestle the ball off me they helped pull me over their line, then when Jonathan’s pressure came in I managed to dot the ball down for the briefest of moments before it was wrestled free by the oppo. Thankfully the ref saw the magic split seconds and ignored the Feltham’s protestations and we were up 12 – 0. However, all us forwards need to use our brains a little more in order for our untrained pod approaches to be more successful as I suspect we could have had quite a route if we were a little more controlled and coordinated. We failed several times again to get the ball cleanly to the back of driving rucks.

The next Exile to cross the line was our reformed and remarkably well behaved Fabio, fresh back on the pitch after a self imposed 2 week ban for a red card incident at Isleworth. Shortly after came the second backs try from our no. 10 of the day Jareth. This gave us a bonus point which gives us a position of 4th out of 8 in the league despite this being our 2nd win from 5 games! All three loses being 17-18!!!! So the league is all to play for!

Although the first half was all about attacks in their red zone we were not looking great in defense and fitness and awareness was leaving big gaps for the oppo to exploit. Luckily they didn’t make much headway here despite managing to get some good ball out to their wingers. Half time talk was about stating we needed to defend our lead in the second half. We did pretty well, but they did manage to break our line and get their try, fortunately it was not converted. Their prop was taking the kicks and I suspect Barry’s wily propping was taking it’s toll as he failed to get it through the uprights. As the Feltham cross bar had been stolen, the fact that the conversion and his earlier penalty kick went right of the posts made the ref’s job a lot easier than it could have been.

The latter part of the game again saw us camping on their try line and being informed by the ref once the ball goes over the try line and does not get grounded it is deemed held up, hence the need for us to work on getting it cleanly to the back…

Last try of the day came in from Jonathan who had been saving his energy for what Barry calls his "3 minutes" of play per game. Jonathan burst through their defenses around their 10 yard line and changed for the posts, he kept looking round at the Feltham lad who was closing down on him, but thankfully all the earlier rest paid for itself as he kept on the gas and downed the ball smack between the posts. James H duly felt sympathy for the Feltham boys and fluffed the conversion ending our game 29-5.

Great for us to get a win. Good discipline from pretty much all, which was fantastic to see. Let keep it up and work a bit harder on fitness and getting clean ball to the back of our mauls when homing in on the oppo try line. Look forward to welcoming Feltham back at Ealing where I hope we can offer them the same hospitality that they bestowed on us in their fancy new club house, though luckily for them the away changing rooms at Ealing won’t match the grim stinky cargo containers that we had the pleasure of experiencing.

Tries:
Stef McCabe
Nick Greenhalgh
Fabio Kraniqi
Jareth Keenan
Jonathan McKeogh

Cons:
James Hitchcock (2)

Players and rough position:
Alex Adide (11)
Alister Barnston (14)
Anthony Chapman (4)
Barry Cousins(3/11)
Neal Craig(12)
Nick Greenhalgh(7) skipper
Marc Hubbard(5)
Jareth Keenan(10)
Fabio Krasniqi(2)
Greg Life(3)
Stefan McCabe(9)
Jonathan McKeogh(5)
Steve Richards(1)
Chandra Sekar(14)
Julian Sweeny(8)
Gautam Tamang(6)
James Hitchcock (15)

Exiles lose a third league match this season being in the wrong side of a 17-18 scoreline! Tough game with many niggles, three yellow cards (only 1 Exile) and way too much bad language. However, we had several promising phases and were the better team on the park. The downfall was not being switched on at the start and letting slip two soft tries very early on. We managed to strike back pretty quickly but not enough.

Mark Hubbard, new to the side and new to rugby this season managed to get himself in the score sheet with an impressive smash through to their try line from a ruck on their line. I’d just cleared some fellow off the ball when Mark fired over and landed next to me with a satisfying thud, a big smile and the ball well ground!

The second try came from Chris Bruce, also new to the Exiles this season, on the far right after several phases of good forward play. The forwards did a good job this day but too often we failed to coordinate and communicate in getting the ball to the back of mauls, especially on and over the opposition try line. Several times we failed to score as a mass of Exiles got white line fever without getting the ball cleanly down. We definitely need to work on getting the ball to the back and ready for a final runner to finish the good work.

Most amusing try was scored by Exiles veteran try scorer Stef McCabe. His first of the season. From what I recall they had a scrum about 10 yards out from their line. Their scrum half broke open with the ball, started running straight to me then he oddly decided he’d change direction completely and run back towards his line and back round the other side of the quickly breaking up scrum. Steve Richards couldn’t believe his luck being as the no.9 came his way. Steve put in a nice hit the ball was spilled and Stef gathered it an popped over the try line.

Other memorable moments. Mark Thompson came back from a long absence and made some good runs as centre. He also received a stamp on the back as one of the gracious opposition players was jogging back from a ruck and saw Mark’s back inviting his boot. Pretty daft behaviour swiftly dealt with by the ref who carded the offender. Joe Southwart was putting in some nice big hits, unfortunately his biggest hit of the day involved him being more hurt than the fellow he hit as he got his head on the wrong side. Jonathan McKeogh decided at one point he’d play the role of a squealing rodeo bull as he took several oppo players for a ride down the pitch. It took about 7 of them to bring him down.

We look forward to playing Twickenham later in the season when we hope to reverse this result!

Tries:
Mark Hubbard
Chris Bruce
Stef McCabe

Con:
James Hitchcock

Players:
Dan Avery
Chris Bruce
Barry Cousins
Neal Craig – Yellow card
Nick Greenhalgh – skipper
Adrian Hobbs
Marc Hubbard
Jareth Keenan
Clive Lungley
David MacSweeney
Ghassan matta
Stefan McCabe
Jonathan McKeogh
Afe Ogun
Steve Richards
Joe Southwart
Julian Sweeny
Gautam Tamang
Mark Thompson
James Hitchcock