Whole Team Shines

A muddy pitch and a cold day saw Selby welcome Grimsby to Sandhill Lane. Having returned to Team Selby rugby in the last match against Pock the coaches were looking for another similar performance from this whole squad game.

Grimsby lined up and look a formidable pack with some big forwards but with Raddings,Smith and Hicks starting in the front row Selby were no lightweight bunch themselves.

From the drop off you could see Selby were looking to play fast quick ball and keep the game alive.

The forwards were operating thee “clamp” at rucks and onlycommittingg three to the contest therefore if they won the ball they had quick ball which they could move wide or drive with and if the were turned over they had more men on their feet.

It was from this quick ball that Selby scored their first try with Raddings (who had his best game in a Selby shirt for a while) taking advantage of the space left by overcommitted Grimsby forwards to blast through for a try in the first 5 mins.

Them quick rugby Selby played for the first ten mins of the game ripped the heart out of the Grimsby team who found themselves unable to cope with the speed and pace of the Selby attack. Which constantly asked questions by attacking via straight running, offloads and good ball moved wide to the speed merchants on the outside.

Selby should have had a few more try s as time and time again they ripped open the Grimsby defence and if it had not been for inexperience of some of the new players they would have found themselves on the score sheet as both James Hogg and Anthony both made good attacking runs from ball supplied via Taylor.

In the end it was the outside centres (playing inside for once) turn to show his pace as he took a ball slipped inside to him from Harrison at ten to out strip the Grimsby defence and score under the posts.

Andy Mac playing at 9 was having a good day as his forwards competed at the breakdown to give him good ball which he inevitable found Harrison with who looked comfortable with ball in hand at ten and produced some interesting variations to allow his team mates to find space and attack.

This showed in a nice move that lead to a try, when from the back of a scrum Harrison ran a switch move with Taylor that allowed an attack up the ten channel which with some nice passing from the backs allowed harriosn to break and if he had backed his pace he would have scored but he decided to chip through and the Grimsby 15 got back to the ball first.

Grimsby did not manage to clear their lines though and Selby forced the ball into a tight maul on the left that broke down and saw Dominic Crazy Horse Leighton recover the ball and going over for a try.

Leighton was having a storming game as aside from his try his work in disrupting the Grimsby pack in the breakdown area was excellent. Possible the best game he has played this season.

Callum Hope playing at outside centre made some excellent straight runs and whilst not as quick as some of his colleagues showed power beyond his size to break the gain line on many an occasion.

Lewis The Tank Hicks showed what with a little more fitness he can achieve when he took the ball with about seven meters to go and smashed his way over the Grimsby try line.

Half Time came and with it a major structural change to the Selby team.

Hunt came on at Ten,Wright at nine and for 5 mins Grimsby faced the wrath of an almost full strength Selby side playing with confidence and pace.
One of the most popular try of the day came when the Assassin was found with a good pass from his centres and broke to the right hand side of the Grimsby half and used his not inconsiderable pace to go over and score in the corner to the cheers of his team mates.

Over the next ten mins the Coaches made multiple subs removing the hard men of the team, Raddings,Harrison,McCoy, Foster and Sockett to leave the new guys on the field to show what they could do.

The shape change caused a few issues at first and some of the speed of the game dissipated but what the team lacked in experience they made up for in effort and commitment.

It was this team effort that allowed Hunt to go over for his try. The ball was locked under a ruck but Wright dug well and broke blind side to make good yards before being brought down, he was immediately supported by the young Selby new bloods who fought to retain the ball and allowed Hunt to take a pass where he broke for the corner and forced his way in for a try.

The spirit Grimsby had as a team was tremendous as despite being down by 40 points they kept going and refused to give in and through this effort eventually ran in two trys.

To list all the try and plays in this exciting game would take me longer than I have left before I collect my pension. In addition as the rolling subs were used to get all 25 Selby players on the pitch individual performances of quality were many and varied, but the best part of the day was the way the lads played as a team. So apologies to the many good things that people did on the day and whilst the opposition was not Harrogate the signs were there that Selby have overcome the disruption of the Yorkshire Trials and Cup run and are working their way back to what they do best and that is to be the Green Machine that is TEAM SELBY.