BRK vs SRK - Away game

The preparation of the most important game of the season didn't start very well. Poor turn-out at the last training season and on top of that Hanro was unavailable for the game after being at the hospital for a little surgery. Espen Engevik moved to Stavanger in August so Bergen was without any experienced scrum-half for that game. Moreover, we didn't have any reserves for the game, travelling down with just 16 players among them 3 juniors.

Early ferry at Halhjem and a smooth drive to Stavanger despite some dangerous Canadian "kjøring", we got to Stavanger at 12.30, two hours before kick-off.

Nice and gentle warm-up was under the direction of captain Willy.

I guess the whole team was a little bit anxious as Hervé had to play scrum-half for Bergen without any relevant experience at this position. After the first scrum, Bergen understood that it was going to be a tough day, Stavanger being too strong in that part of the game. However, the first try was scored by Bergen: Bergen was awarded a penalty on Stavanger's five meter line. The ball was given to our Giant, Stian, who ran through the Stavanger's defense and scored. Tim added two points on the board for BRK. Few minutes later, Stavanger was attacking in our own 22 and made a nice move, swinging the ball from one wing to the other wing. Their winger was stopped by Hervé but the ref decided the tackle to be too high and gave him a yellow card. However, SRK was unable to score during the next ten minutes. Later on, Bergen scored a second try with a nice combination between Stian, Victor and Tim but the try was cancelled due to a forward pass called by the ref. That was very unfortunate because Stavanger defended very badly on that occasion and it would have almost killed the game for them. Few minutes later, just before half-time, Stavanger scored a try with its pack mauling on 20 meters. Poor defence from Bergen and BRK was a bit frustrated to reach half-time with 7-7 on the scoreline.

In the second-half, the ref had to stop the game too often. Both teams were giving too many penalties and some players lost a bit their control (for example, dirty Andy Samy on Dave Hume). Stavanger took the lead on one of these penalties. Bergen had one nice opportunity to score but wasted it : penalty on Stavangers five meters line : quick tap from the scrum half to Stian who passed to Tim. Smooth pass to Victor who just had to pass to Derek and Alex who were standing alone on the wing. However, Victor didn't pass, decided to go back inside and was stopped by their last defender, Kristoffer. Three minutes before the end, Bergen was finally awarded a penalty and Tim kicked it. At that time, Bergen was reduced to 14 men (Dave Hume was spending the last ten minutes on the bench after a yellow card for pushing the ref's button once too often). 10-10 was the final result and everyone had one question at the end of the game : "So who qualified to play the final?".

We came to Stavanger determined to win, despite SRK having their best opportunity to beat us in our 7 years of being unbeaten by them. They have a very strong squad and were able to substitute many players during the match without compromising quality. We can be very pleased with the fact that our starting team of 15 made it the whole 80 minutes (sorry, Kent...). Not a pretty game, though.

Line-outs and especially scrums really need to be improved if we want to beat ECB in the final. We have now got three weeks to work on it...

The team:

[Click on the picture above to download a high-res copy]

1. Samir Sayed-Ahmad
2. Karl Frisch
3. Svein Jarle Slinde
4. Markus Sourlas
5. Ian Irving
6. David Hume
7. Derek Johnson
8. Stian Røstberg
9. Hervé Socquet-Juglard
10. Tim Edstrøm
11. Kenny Hope
12. Victor Frog2
13. Alvaro Alvarez
14. Alexander Bertelsen
15. William Wilson ©

16. Kent Gøran Eide

Try : Stian Røstberg
Conversion : Tim Edstrøm
Penalty : Tim Edstrøm

Yellow (white shopping list) Card : Hervé and Dave

Ref : David Benjamin