Engineers leave Navy adrift
Volume 11, No. 50, August 24, 2006

Charge: An SME player on the attack in the game against Navy. Photo by Bill Cunneen

ENGINEERS have snatched victory from Navy at an inter-service rugby match in Moorebank, NSW.

Coach Capt Don Philpots said the RAE team, which won the July 24 match 22-17, turned the game around after Navy posted first points.

“The backs were asleep for the first five or 10 minutes and allowed Navy to score first,” he said.

“But their defence picked up from there and they started to force Navy into errors.”

When front row players Jeff Rowlands and Spr Moore were sidelined with injury, the engineers started to lose a bit of ball in the scrum.

“They both got injured and we had to put our reserve players on, one of whom had not trained with us,” Capt Philpots said.

Team numbers were an issue for RAE, but Capt Philpots said the team’s training paid off.

“There were some good moves out there. A lot of tries and points came from worked moves which was good to see,” he said.

“Having said that, even in the loose the loose the forwards were dynamic, they were tremendous. They gained the ball well, they went forward well and the backs executed the strike balls when they got it.”

He was confident that the RAE team was capable of winning.

“I smelt victory mid-way through the second half. I knew we had it in us to win,” he said. “The forwards were still dynamic going forward and the backs were incisive in their running. They stuck to their game and they scored a good try.”

He attributed the win partly to the fitness of the Army team.

“Their conditioning is good and that’s the advantage the Army will always have over the Navy,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Tri Nation Sapper Rugby Cup tournament is scheduled for the first time next year. Capt Philpots said it would be held at SME in Sydney and would include teams of engineers from New Zealand and the UK.