Engineers fall short in brave stoush
Volume 11, No. 43, May 18, 2006

Try saver: A player from HMAS Sydney halts a member of the A Fd Bty team in a preliminary Mons Cup game at Rose Bay. Photo by AB Andrew Dakin.

A GALLANT scratch team from Army's SME found it a bridge too far when they tackled a combined HMAS Penguin/Watson/Waterhen team in an exciting final at the 2006 Mons Cup Rugby Championship on May 1.

Seven rugby union teams - four Navy, three Army - competed at Woollahra Field in Rose Bay, Sydney.

In the early rounds, the combined HMAS Penguin/Watson/Waterhen team set the pace with some impressive scores earlier in its pool games. SME also stood out during their campaign.

In the first semi-final, SME ground out a 14-8 victory against Army One, with the second semi-final going to HMAS Penguin/Watson/Waterhen 32-6 against HMAS Darwin.

The Mons Cup final was a thrilling affair, with SME losing an extremely close and hard-fought encounter, going down by just one point - 14-15.

SME's tries were scored by LCpl Jeffrey Joyce and Spr Tommi Hardback, with Spr Daniel McSpadden converting both.

Cdre Bruce Kafer, Chief of Combat Support Group MHQ, presented SME with the Wally Long Plate runners-up trophy.

LS Matthew Hilyard (HMAS Penguin/Watson/Waterhen) won the best and fairest award.

SME's success in winning the Kapooka Tens tournament earlier in the year spurred them on to seek coveted Mons Cup glory.
SME coach Capt Don Philpots said it was unfortunate that most of the players who were so successful at Kapooka, were not available for the Mons Cup.

"The Friday before the competition, representatives of 17 Const Sqn, IRR and SME were franticly e-mailing each other in an effort to scrape enough players together to form a 22-man squad available to play on the Monday," he said.

"On the morning of the competition, I turned up at Rose Bay to find a group of players who had been thrown together to form an SME team, several of whom I had not seen or coached before."

SME had a round-one bye before beating HMAS Darwin 17-0 in round two and A Fd Bty 38-0 in round three.

"As the coach of the Combined Sydney Engineers, SME and RAE rugby teams I was impressed by the courage, skill and spirit shown by all of the players on the day," Capt Philpots said.

"They were thrown together in the morning and, following a few drills and key training points, took to the field and put in a performance that was worthy of a team that had played together for a long time.

"The last three games were played back-to-back, with just a 10-minute break between the semi-final and the grand final.

"In the end, though the result was disappointing, it was a great testimony to the spirit and determination of the, by-then-exhausted boys."

A big "thank you" also went to the referees who did an outstanding job throughout the day.