Drags smash Aberdeen at SKP

From Drags Team Manager, Murray Sargant

HKFC Dragons 51-7 HKCC

An outstanding result on the weekend against Aberdeen.

This weekend was not looking all that great for us as CJ and I worked hard on pulling the team together all week. Firstly on Thursday night Grewers hurt his neck and was not up to playing and secondly on game day itself Robin pulled up lame with a nagging calf strain. Luckily for Drags we called on Phil Reid and Shoey to fill the gaps and they didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately that did leave us with one reserve for the game itself but luckily it was super sub David Gutherie.

It became apparent early on that our pack was in a dominant frame of mind and the front row of Babis, Kim and Harper made sure that the Aberdeen scrum was going to have a long day in the office. We turned over at least four of their feeds and on our put in we were rock solid. This meant that we had heaps of procession and the result was some excellent pressure leading to the first try from Callum in left hand corner.

After that it was the turn of the Drags lineout to have a go. They didn’t disappoint with Tim jumping at 2 and Corks at 4 we dominated the air and made every lineout competitive. Plenty of quality ball for Phil Reid to distribute and the backline which didn’t disappoint. Raby was in confident form and looked dangerous every time he touched the ball. Two great tries from out wide and Aberdeen even with their star centre from the 1st were on the rack. Raby then did a Wilkinson and had an unsuccessful attempted at drop goal from just inside the halfway line. Won’t repeat what CJ thought of this use of the ball but you cant hold back the confidence of youth. He then went onto score three tries and set up a fourth so CJ felt all was forgiven. Stobart take note if you miss a drop goal you better score three tries.

Going into the half we felt comfortable and that resulted in our only lapse of the game. We were throwing the ball around from side to side and sure enough one of our passes got intercepted. The backs then recovered well bringing the Aberdeen centre down on the 22 meter line. However with quick ball and some fast rucks Aberdeen eventually got the ball back to their large centre who went over from close range. The resulting try and conversion really got Drags fired up and that meant more trouble for Aberdeen for the remaining second half.

The backs then really opened up with a second try to Callum on the wing. This was the try of the day as Callum raced down the right touch line Aberdeen seemed to have him covered. A little extra gas from Callum and a nice step made the Aberdeen defence hesitate and then the fullback went high. Callum brushed him off and managed to stay well inside the touch line for great solo try. The rest of the afternoon had Andy Yip get on the score board with two touch downs and also another for Raby and one each for Ramsey and Shannon finished off the 9 try wrought. The only negative was that Corkery got nailed in the ribs from a very hard hit in one of our many attacking moves. The result was three broken ribs and a painful end of the game for Corks. He is fine although he will need the next few weeks to get his ribs back in shape. I can confirm that straight after the hit and while he couldn’t breath his first words were “ I want to punch that fucker” Summed up the spirit in the team that day with everyone giving 110%.

By far the strongest game of the year from Drags despite not having a bench sorry David as you did get a run so we ended the game with no bench. The fact we never let up and kept scoring and putting the pressure on was excellent. We had starring performances right across the park with Raby leading the try count, Peyton and Shannon driving up the middle, Edgar and Corks in the air but the Man of the Match as voted by CJ and Ramsey as Captain was Phil Reid. Phil played a fantastic solid game in attack and was the fourth member of the backrow cleaning up any forwards that wanted to run in his direction. A great performance from him, a very worthy winner in what was a great day for Drags.

Well done to the entire team. A Superb effort.

HKFC Dragons v HKCC
Saturday 27 August, 3.00pm, SKP


1. Adam Harper
2. Kim Cau
3. Damien Babis
4. Peyton Burnett
5. Ramsey Carter(C) (try)
6. Shannon Ford (try)
7. Andrew Corkery
8. Tim Edgar

9. Phil Reid
10. Ben Harris
11. Adam Raby (3 tries)
12. Simon Shoebridge
13. Andy Yip (2 tries)
14. Callum Nieto (2 tries)
15. Ed Cosgrove

Replacement: David Gutherie