Southampton 2 v Lymington – Match Report

Lymington Mariners’ victorious on historic day

Southampton II (3) – Lymington Mariners (28)

Lymington Mariners travelled to Southampton as the team made history by playing and winning their first ever league match since the club’s formation.

Unfortunately the game was marred by a worrying back injury to Lymington’s blind side flanker, Stuart Thomas, which required emergency services to be called and the game to be cut short.

A pumped up Mariner side, led for the first time by vice-captain and skipper for the day, Owen Cavell, showed their intent from the opening whistle hunting down the ball from their kick off and gaining possession. Within a few short passes, open side flanker Jamie Banaisk had the ball and, like a knife through butter, cut his way through a melee of defenders to touch down under the posts. Tom Jenvey, a last minute stand in at scrum half and on his debut for the club, scored the conversion.

The game seemed to have barely resumed before both teams were experiencing Déjà Vu as Jamie scored his and Lymington’s second try; and Tom added the conversion.

Southampton then began to apply some pressure of their own. Their heavy pack held its own in the set pieces and spent some time in the Mariners’ half. A frustrated Lymington defence strayed off-side and gave Southampton their only points of the match as they kicked the penalty.

Despite the continued chaos, the Mariners kept their shape and after some excellent positional kicking by scrum-half Tom, secured a line out deep in opposition territory. A clean take and quick hands got the ball to outside centre Phil Jenner on full throttle. The flailing defenders went down like bowling pins as Phil powered his way over the line to take the score to 3-19. Again Tom made sure the extra two points were taken and, with only 20 minutes gone, Lymington looked set to break their ‘highest score’ record on this historic day.

From the restart, second row Tim Hinman made a dazzling run back through the chasing Southampton pack and looked set to go all the way had he not selflessly off loaded only to see the chance break down. The one way traffic continued and a scrum was soon won 5 metres from the Southampton line. Jamie Banaisk hungry for his second hat-trick in successive matches swapped positions with No.8 John West, picked the ball up and scored, flattening the defending fly-half in the process who didn’t get up until after Tom Jenvey had made it four from four.

With half time approaching, Southampton had one last chance to score a try of their own as they won a penalty 5 metres out and decided to run it. The ball was popped to their charging, over sized, prop who with just two metres to the line was stopped dead in his tracks by a ferocious thumping tackle from the fearless Stuart Thomas. It was from this that Stuart got his injury and the game was halted for 20 minutes whilst the emergency crews took every precaution to safely move him to an ambulance.

With the heat gone from the match, as well as from the players’ bodies, Southampton sportingly conceded the game with a final score of 3-28. The club is happy to report that Stuart not only receives this week’s ‘Rivaaz Man of the match’ award but that he was also home the next day, hurt but not damaged.

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Lymington’s next home game will be this Saturday, 2^nd October 2010, in a friendly against Romsey II Vets team at Woodside Park, kick-off at 3pm. Please come and cheer the guys on.

Any players, experienced or new to the game, young and fit or otherwise are all welcome. For more details contact Lee Thomas on 07917 556 863 or lee.thomas@skillsfundingagency.bis.gov.uk