By the Skin of WURL's Teeth

UoNRL 2's 44 - 45 WURL

The day was blustery and the teams lined up.

Notts got the game underway with a big kickoff and WURL returned the first few sets sluggishly. With this sluggishness Notts snuck through the line to cross over for the first try of many. The blustering wind continued and with it WURL's momentum began to grow with field position given away again and again by Notts. In spite of this with this field position there was a bit of tunnel vision initially, with crash up after crash up battering the Notts line. This wave like battering did provide results though, with the President Ben Macintyre crossing twice to put WURL in the lead with two conversions soon afterwards. Yet these waves were not without their breaks as WURL were plagued by a shortage of players, especially after an early concussion. Notts soon replied however and due to lapses in WURL's defence, they sailed through to score two tries in quick succession to take the lead by 6 points. Half time was quickly approaching when Ben McCormack ploughed through the Notts defence to cross over and a conversion from Ben Macintyre put WURL in the lead by 2 at half time. The whistle sounded and WURL got underway with a kickoff. A wind change soon followed and it was all hands on deck for WURL trying to prevent Notts crossing over. Yet despite the effort Notts burst through twice to take the game out of WURL's hands, or so they thought. With renewed passion, WURL set a course dead ahead and manned the guns with renewed vigour. With 4 wide moves in quick succession for Azfar Zaki getting WURL's first hat-trick of the season, with no small part thanks to Matt Allen and Ewan Mills breaking the line to give Azfar the chances. Ewan Mills also crossed over in the same fashoin to put WURL 2 scores ahead.

The last 10 minutes quickly approached and WURL prepared to weather the storm that was sure to follow. However Notts breached to cross over twice and converted both to make it level pegging. With seconds to go till the final whistle, WURL kicked off and forced a mistake on Notts twenty. With one hit up from the scrum to set Aaron Powell to take the drop kick which majestically sailed through the air to win WURL their second game of the season and sail, though battered and bruised, through to the next round.

WURL XIII :

1. Cameron Khan

2. Shahril Lufti

3. Jacob Hewson

4. Alex Harridine

5. Azfar Zaki

6. Ewan Mills

7. Matt Allen

8. Ben McCormack

9. Ben Macintyre

10. James McHenry

11. James Taylor

12. Aaron Powell

13. Tom Dessington

Interchanges : Aymeric Dumont

James Hingston.