Game Report: Aug 22, 2009

Aurora Barbarians – Under 16 Boys
Aurora Barbarians RFC (ABRFC) 12 - Barrie RFC 43

The Aurora Barbarians U16s, who finished third in their division, travelled to play second place Barrie in a semi-final playoff game on Saturday. Confidence was high amongst the boys, especially since Aurora had defeated their hosts in a league game in June. This was a different Barrie squad that took the field. From the opening whistle they performed like a machine, grinding and offloading the ball effectively in their forwards and executing excellent overlap runs in their backs. The young Barbs were slow to respond and Barrie punched in five unanswered tries by halftime to take a commanding 31-0 lead. Despite facing such a huge deficit, Aurora did not roll over, and came out energized in the second half. The Barrie players faded a bit and the Barbs began finding holes to exploit. There were three or four near-tries that were shut down just short by a desperate Barrie defence. The Barbs finally hit the scoreboard with a beautiful multi-phase ball that punched across the try line by fly-half Chris Kearsey. A second try was scored in the corner in a carry by eight-man, Matt Acchione. It was converted to a penalty try due to a Barrie head high tackle and Kearsey kicked the convert. Barrie scored two tries as well in the half to make the final score 43-12. The positive outlook though is that the second half was a tie game,

This could be the end of the season for the U16s. There is a possibility of a friendly "bronze medal" game with Markham on Saturday if that can be arranged. Details to follow.

Men of the Match: Matt Acchione, Mike Griffiths

Hearty Hurrahs go to: Vaughn Keeble, Mackenzie Diggins, Misha Dubinskij, Chris Kearsey, Evan Fernandes, Andrew Battaglia and Daniel Foster.