ROYAL NAVY ANCIENT MARINERS VS ROYAL AIR FORCE VULTURES

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The first round of this season Veterans Inter-Service Championships took place at HMS Temeraire when the Ancient Mariners hosted the RAF Vultures. The conditions were near perfect for running rugby. The RAF Coach, Simon Hill said “our backs love beautiful days like today because it means when we get the opportunities we can open our legs and show how professional the Veterans game has become. The RAF Veterans made 12 changes since the last meeting of these two sides but the opening score went to the Mariners when an over eager RAF captain, Jason Mateer, was penalised for killing the ball, full back Rick Astley duly converted the penalty. The RAF found themselves under a lot of pressure in the early exchanges and the scrummage took a little time to get to grips with a strong RN pack, at one point the Vultures management team thought an afternoon of torment was in progress until a sparkling break from Dave Mason took play deep in to the Mariners 22 where some excellent interplay between the RAF forwards saw prop Spider Le Mar muscle himself over for a try, this was converted by winger Gary Banford to raise Vultures heart and confidence.

The Vultures started to dominate the set pieces and it was not long before they were rewarded by another two Banford penalties which saw the Vultures end the half with a 13 points to 3 lead. The second half started brightly for the Vultures when the Mariners were reduced to 14 men by a yellow card following a series of repeated infringements. Scoring was shared during this period with both sides scoring 3 points, the Vultures through the boot of Magic Jones and the Mariners from another Astley penalty. A 10 minute stint in the bin for centre Dix who was guilty of over coaching the referee linked to a late touchdown by the Mariners Dan Jones converted by Astley briefly gave the Mariners some hope of staging a comeback but a final Banford penalty condemned the Mariners to further IS heartache. The Vultures ran out deserved winners by 19 points to 16 points thus completing the first stage of the 2009/2010 championships.

After the game the Vultures coaching staffs were impressed by the work rate and determination of the players but, they quickly identified we made too many mistakes and gave away a lot of silly penalties. With some sloppy ball handling giving the impression they wanted to wrap up the game in the first half. The pressure and possession deserved more but the victory was fully justified, the Mariners are a good footballing side and will pose the Army many problems when they meet at Kneller Hall in May. The Vultures now move on to host the Army Pensioners at Newbury on 21 April 2010.