Inter Services 2015 Round 3 – Royal Navy v Army

On a tense night at Burnaby Road in Portsmouth the Royal Navy senior team beat the Army to retain the Jack Harrison Trophy and the Inter Services Cup

The USA World Cup Rugby Union had been training at the Burnaby Road in the days before the IS matches and with heavy rain pre match it is a great credit to the USSG groundstaff that the pitch was in such good condition for the two vitally important games.
On another memorable night for RNRL the Senior team dug deep against a strong Army outfit to secure the victory needed to retain the IS title.
Initially things looked set for another entertaining match with the weather having settled down and the pitch standing up well to all the action. A great start by the home side saw the RN retaining possession well; back to back sets eventually resulting in a try to the right of the posts for centre Tom Loxham, a great conversion by Darren Bamford extended the lead to six after only 8 minutes. The game became a bit of a arm wrestle with the RN giving away a lot of penalties which eased the pressure on the Army allowing them to clear the lines and look to mount some meaningful attacks themselves. As a result o the break down in discipline and with a lot of nerves on show the game to be fair was not a great spectacle but as the game moved to half time the RN looked reasonably secure. One worry for RN coach Steve Lockton was the loss of influential full back Darren Bamford after 20 minutes fortunately he did return during the second half. The only other score of the half went to scrum half James Young who converted a penalty with barely anytime left on the clock to make the score 6:2 at the break
The second half followed the same pattern but the RN did get more control of their discipline but could still not find a way through a resolute Army defence. The Army on the other hand seemed lost for ideas in attack, far too many passes were sent backwards losing ground on every play. The Army did think they were back in the game in the early stages of the game when they crossed out wide after a rare flowing attack however Ref Darren Hayes after taking advice from the touch judge chalked the score off due to a forward pass. As the half wore on the nerves within the RN support got a bit frayed as the lead was not even safe from a converted try. Finally the tension was releases Luke Cooper who had worked hard on his home IS debut found away y through to score the vital four pointer thus stretching the RN lead to 10:2. The relief was plain to see as now the RN could sense the win and sure enough with no further scoring and Ref Hayes whistle the game was over and the RN were victorious for a second consecutive year.
The man of the match award was given to RN hooker Marine Andy Kay who originally joined the Army before transferring to the RM and was presented by Maj Jack Duckitt, Chairman of RM RL. The Jack Harrison trophy was presented to RN skipper Mark Robinson by Brig. Frank Noble, Army RL President. Skipper Robinson was back to the front again to accept the Inter Services trophy from Second Sea Lord Admiral Jonathon Woodcock OBE who congratulated Robinson and his team on the result.

RNRL - Darren Bamford, Luke Cooper, Silivenusi Buinimasi,Tom Loxam,Mike Haldenby, Kev Botwood, Ryan Mathews, Mark Robinson (C), Andy Kay, Gareth Cadmore, Ben Taylor (vc), Nathan Lee, Tommy Wilkinson, Lewis Taylor,Craig R Sutton, Sam Carter, Adam Birkett.
Scorers: T- Loxam , Cooper
G- Bamford (Conv)

Army RL - Rob Martin (C), Sonoma Veikune, Jamie Laing, Ricky Wilde, Mike Harrison, Rhydian Slade-Jones(vc), James Young, Rob Bussey, Steven Wicks, Aaron Morfitt, Chris Brand
Lewis Allen, Jordan Kerman, Andre Zwijnen, Cristian Wooler, Ignatius Putty, Matt Keenan
Scorers: Young (Pen)