Match Recap: Charles River Rats at Old Gold

Charles River Rats at Old Gold 9/8/2018, Week 1

Four weeks of swampy preseason training lead up to a beautiful, sunny, cool opening kickoff, and the Rats arrived at Moakley park ready to pounce on Old Gold. From the first moments, Charles River took advantage of Old Gold’s mistakes, scoring in the first three phases and following it up with three more in the first 20 minutes, making it 26-0 Charles River after conversions. Old Gold found their feet and struck back twice, with Charles River answering again just before half, down a man after a Joe Henry yellow card for a dump tackle. 33-12, the Rats had the lead in the second half.

Kicking to Old Gold, they kept the pressure on and never looked back. Tries came just as readily in the second half, with Old Gold sniping around the rucks with some limited success, and Charles River continuing to mercilessly capitalize on mistakes. If Old Gold lined up too narrow, Charles River would skip it wide. If they charged up, we would chip behind them. The integrity of the attack was maintained by the pack, who focused their efforts on attacking the Old Gold line with ferocity whenever allowed. The Rat pack also delivered a solid gold 5meter scrum pushover try early in the match. Old Gold lost their composure, with a missed punch at John Gill earning one of their players a red card. By the end, Charles River stood above their rivals, 66-24, and at the top of the NERFU D3 table.

Try summaries:

1’ Flyhalf Corey Lang chipped behind Old Gold, with fullback Colman Mulkerrin gathering and running ⅔ the length of the pitch along the touch line, beating the wing and fullback to score. Conv. Mulkerrin

10’ Scrum pushover try, with 8man Mike Kierman touching it down. Conv. Mulkerrin

14’ Lang kicks again, this time gathered on the bounce by Jake Cox on the wing. Conv. Mulkerrin

19’ Charles River’s scrum delivered a clean ball, spun wide right with a beautiful skip pass from inside center Zach Mehuren over outside Rob Mazzola and to wing Devin Doherty on the edge, who finished with a clean line in.

39’ Mulkerrin inserted in the midfield and served a one-handed offload in the tackle to Doherty, who could have walked it in from there. Conv. Mulkerrin

55’ Replacement flanker Kyle Gallagher ran a strong ball inside the 10 channel, setting up a switch by replacement outside center Kevin Schroeder to J. Cox the next phase, his second try. Conv Fullback replacement Jake Kelley.

67’ A Lang turnover at the breakdown generated a counter-attack integrating Schroeder and Doherty, the three combining to exploit an overload and deliver a third Doherty try. Conv. Kelley

70’ Clever redirection in the backfield by the entire back line generated J. Cox’s third try, another long run down the outside with the final pass from Schroeder. Conv. Kelley

73’ Forward phases gave way to a crash by Doherty near the ruck, then a next phase draw-and-pass from Lang that gave Lock Pat Meade a clear path to a try.

78’ Lock Pat Meade gathered a kick and provided a pop pass in the tackle which allowed J. Cox to gather his fourth and final try of the day. Conv. Lang