Rugby Football Club Basel

21.03.09 / 1st team

RC CMSG - RFC Basel 30:12

CERN away. First match of the year. Training attendance and performance had been promising. A good turnout resulted in 24 players heading down on the luxury coach to Geneva.

A great start had Basel looking like world beaters. Good ball was provided by the forwards on half way. A great break by Tim, was halted on the 22. But as in training he passed off the floor to the supporting David, who released Tibor to drive over line for a great opening try. Benji was very unlucky to miss the conversion from the corner in a high cross wind. The CERN linesman gave it, but the referee waived it away.

However the power in CERN’s big pack then took over and managed to disrupt our set piece. In one retreating scrum, Wieland was tripped and turned his ankle, to be replaced at 9 by Juan, who seemed to take his inspiration for the position from Mauro Bergamasco. For the rest of the game both sides struggled for any real consistency. But the CERN pack managed to work field position and their big runners forced their way over the line for their tries. We looked good with the ball in hand but struggled to get quick ball from rucks and mauls. The backs were always dangerous. CERN resorted to a disgusting off the ball body check to try and halt Tim, but our man is made of sterner stuff. Sadly it was so far off the ball to be missed by the referee.

The scrum managed to gain some parity and Tim F. took a couple against the head, but the lineout continued to be varied. One attack finally resulted in Liam breaking through the line to score. But CERN were always comfortably ahead on the score board.

Some good individual performances stood out. Richard and Ian in the second row battles manfully. Henrik got through his usual amount of tackling and ball stealing. Tim G. broke the line endlessly, but we could not finish off the breaks he made. Man of the match went to Tibor, for a well taken try and battling performance.

We have to look forward to the next few weeks. The play off position is still possible, but we need to play much better than this. Lots of work to do in training. See you there.

1 Bruno Baltes
2 Thimon Fürst
3 Reto Maurer
4 Ian Carvell
5 Richard Marsden
6 Matthias Gysin
7 Henrik Haerden
8 Stevie Lazarus
9 Wieland Schmid
10 Liam Cox
11 Tibor Németh
12 David Allgöwer
13 Tim Ginz
14 Fabrice Jourdain
15 Benji McGuiness
16 Sam Baumann
17 Danny Wyss
18 Juan Blasco
19 Eugene Carr
20 Christoph Inhelder
21 Olly Müller
22 Chalie Hui