Royal Navy 10 Oxford University 0

For the full official match report please click here.

First outing for the RN and a satisfying one, home win, preventing the opposition from scoring, senior players performing well and youngsters looking to take their chances. Only downside was the injuries to a few of the players.

Team worked very hard for each other in defence and this was typified by an early try saving tackle by captain Dave Pascoe.

In attack the team created a number of openings for themselves but had to wait until just before half time to get their first score.

Capitalising on Oxford University being reduced to fourteen men a simple 8, 9 14 from a scrum allowed the try in the corner for Roko Kurusasa who regrettably didn’t finish the match due to a serious looking injury following a midfield collision. Dave Pascoe kicked the conversion from the touchline for a 7-0 half time lead.

The game proved to be a scrappy affair. Both sides had a player placed in the sin bin in the first half and also each had a player sent off in the second. For the Navy it was gentle giant Jorgi Quarnivalu being flagged by the Assistant Referee whilst in the second half it was Tom Glover being despatch for an altercation with the Oxford scrum half.

Clearly all the action was getting to the Match Officials’ assessor who felt in need of one of those ‘condor’ moments.

Andy Kellett, in his first match as DoR, probably found the result all the more satisfying given the number of injuries his team had to deal with during the game. The whole back row had to be changed before halftime and the second half saw further injuries in the back line. It is always sad to see a player leave the field on a stretcher and hopefully Roko will have a full and speedy recovery.

What was particularly pleasing was right to the end the Navy worked hard for each other to keep their goal line intact. A number of players can be very pleased with their performances and the coaching and support team have the best of starts from which to build.