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Saturday August 11, 2007 Saturday was the occasion for the final senior men's triple header of the year. It has been an outstanding season for men's rugby in Hamilton. There were many regular and executive members who were apprehensive about fielding 3 men's sides in 2007 and I was one of those people. With the last 3-match weekend officially in the books, I am sure that I speak for all members when I say how proud I have been to watch us grow as a club and make this commitment without defaulting a single match in any of the 3 men's divisions of the NRU. The first match of the day between Grimsby Gentlemen and Hamilton 3rds kicked off at 11:30. Grimsby were first on the scoreboard with a penalty on 12 minutes of a tightly contested opening period. Hamilton gave as good as they took, however, and managed a score of their own about 10 minutes later when scrum-half, Chris Gilks, alertly picked the ball out of the side of a Grimsby scrum and popped the ball to flanker, Jason Mancini, who had a good run before being half tackled. Mancini then threw a nice pass to Oliver Nagy and the veteran Hornets winger scored in the corner. The two point lead, however, was short-lived as the Grimsby inside centre made it through a missed tackle to take a 5 – 10 lead in to the 2nd half. Grimsby then scored 5 minutes in to the second half before Hornets winger, Jordain Charest, scored in the corner to make the score Hamilton 10, Grimsby 15. The scoring went back and forth between the teams right until the end of the match. Flanker, Dan Sopher, added a third Hornets try. Then just before full time, 18-year-old fly-half, Alec Stewart made a penetrating run and did well to draw the defender so as to make a perfect hole for, flanker, Keith Hopkins who went over for the final try of the game to make the final score Hamilton 22 – Grimsby 3. --- The 1st/2nd double header this weekend was against Windsor Rogues. The seconds had a tough old day of it since Windsor was short on players and thus played most of their 1sts against the 2nds. Full credit to Windsor; they could have defaulted the 2nd team match but honoured the fixture. As already said, it was a tough day for the 2nds who went down to Windsor by a bit of a heavy score of 0 – 42. That being said, the 2nds hung in all game and kept fighting. The first XV got off to a bit of a slow start against Windsor but scored just after 10 minutes with flanker/captain, Peter Van Zyl, converting his own try. The Hornets were nearly on the scoreboard again 7 minutes later when full-back, Paul Roberto, made a great take of a high ball on the Windsor 10m line and nearly ran it all the way in before being tackled. On 25 minutes of the first half the backs worked a nice move with fly-half, Jamie Whan, faking to his inside centre, Matt Barrett, but passing to outside centre, Dave Lawson, who tossed a nice pass out to the wing for Steve Reise to score. Van Zyl added the conversion to extend to a 14 point lead. The final score of the half came when the Rogues full-back failed to find touch with his clearance kick but instead found Hornets' flanker, Tyler Struck. The ball then passed through almost every pair of hands in the side before the try was scored on the opposite side of the field by lock, Travis Lee, to take the half time score to 21 – 0 for Hamilton. Following the restart, the Hornets let the pressure off of Windsor a bit and were punished for this after 10 minutes when the Rogues kicked a penalty. Hamilton answered back almost immediately though with a try from Dave Lawson before Windsor kicked another penalty to make the score Hamilton 26 – Windsor 6. By this point Windsor were starting to run out of steam and two more Hornets tries then came to kill the game off. First, Peter Van Zyl, took a quick tap penalty and crossed from 15 metres out. Van Zyl was then taken out as he was about to score by a high tackle and the referee awarded a penalty try to end the match at 38 – 6 for Hamilton. Hamilton remain top of the league and will win the NRU title next weekend if they can defeat Windsor in Windsor. Match Report by: The Hamilton Hornets always welcome new Junior and Senior members. Drop us an email at hornets@hamiltonrugby.com or call the club house at 905.575.3133
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