Match Report v Hale School

The first match of tour was versus Hale, played under a perfect Perth sky. We started off at break neck speed with 11 consecutive phases resulting in our captain, Harry Ledger, going over for a try following a precise throw from Max Valler. Will Page narrowly missing the conversion. Played seemed to continue in the same way, until a dubious decision from the referee resulted in Hale closing the gap to two points. The momentum we seemed to have built up faded after this disappointing decision. The rest of the first half was spent on the back foot as Hale's kicker seemed unable to miss due to our poor discipline. The start of the second half, after letting in a soft try, was the start of Whitgift's comeback. It wasn't long until James Donohue crossed the whitewash after a number of phases and strong carriers from Rob White were strung together, utilising both forwards and backs. We stepped up the pressure however we weren't clinical enough and didn't score again until James O'Sullivan bulldozed his way over following threatening breaks from George Smith. We couldn't capitalise on field position towards the end of the second half and we were disappointed not to win, after an extremely strong second half performance. Pleasingly we came out of the game unshaved and everyone is available for selection.

Sam Cooke