Army loses to Navy in thriller.

By Cpl Damian Shovell

ONE point is all that decided Army’s loss to Navy in what’s being heralded as one of the year’s toughest, hardest fought and determined rugby union matches.

When the final siren sounded at Sydney’s Randwick oval on May 18, it was two wet, muddy and physically exhausted teams that limped from the field, with Navy victors over Army 23-22, and Australian Service rugby champions.

Kent Maloney, referee coach for the Services, said the last 10 minutes of the match were an outstanding display of Services rugby.

“It was absolutely fantastic, neither side could have given any more,” he said.

“Both teams played their hearts out – it was for sheep stations – every tackle was made, every pass was covered, every field position was covered, both teams just gave it their all – an outstanding display of Services rugby.”

Assistant coach of the Army rugby union team Sgt Damien Cahill, 1RAR, agreed, but found fault with Army’s performance in earlier stages of the game.

“It was a physical contest, just what you’d expect an Army verses Navy game to be – no one had anything left in the tank at the end,” he said.

Struggling with player cramps, corks and damaged shoulders during the game, Sgt Cahill said the team finished with “probably five fit guys left by the end of it”.

“We’ve been hampered by injuries, we’ve struggled to get guys fit all week for the game – but that’s no excuse, we were outplayed by a team that wanted it more.

“We just didn’t play well, we didn’t play to our structure.

“At half-time, the boys came off thinking they couldn’t play any worse than that in the second half.”

But Sgt Cahill said they did, and as the weather cleared it only assisted in viewing Army’s mistakes.

“Our standard probably dropped even further than it did in the first half. We must have played about five to eight minutes of constructive, structured football in the whole game. The rest of the time we were all over the place.”

Kent Maloney agreed, and said Army were isolated too many times at the tackle.

“When [Army] tried to hang on they were penalised for not releasing the ball – when they did release it, Navy were there in twos and threes and effected too many turnovers and therefore dominated possession field possession as a result,” he said.”

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