Opponent: Sunday Morning
Home/Away: Away
Location: Marquette Park
Score: Hornets - 29, Sunday Morning - 14
Man Of The Match: Nick Kalist
Recap
Hornets vs Sunday Morning 09/21/14.
The Hornets traveled to Marquette Park to take on traditional rivals Sunday Morning on Sunday 09/21/14. After a very lackluster warm-up, the Hornets came out firing, trying to impress the diverse local crowd that had assembled. After only 3 minutes, the baby giraffe, Brad Christ, made some moves to make some defenders miss, and he galloped over from 20 meters out to score the opening try. Brad Bearden’s conversion put the Hornets up 7-0. From the kickoff, the Hornets put in a kick down field and Nate chased hard and made two bone-crunching tackles (great assistant coaching decision to start him at flank) to force a turnover and win a penalty inside the Sunday 22. The rodeo cowboy’s, Brad Bearden, penalty conversion made the score 10-0 after 6 minutes. After the opening onslaught, the game settled in and neither team could gain the upper hand for the next 15 minutes. Sunday's pressure inside the Hornet 22 forced a mistake and from the Sunday scrum feed, the #8 broke to the blind side and despite a good tackle from Nick Kalist, he popped off the ground (possibly forward) to his flanker in support to score a try. The conversion closed the gap to 10-7 after 20 minutes. After 32 minutes, off a Hornet line out win, a beautiful back line move saw Nick in space and he passed back inside for Donovan Unsworth to score easily from a well-worked move. The conversion made the score 17-7 after 32 minutes. But Sunday hit back and after a couple of very dubious penalties, they seized their opportunity right before halftime with their big #8 receiving a short ball to crash over. The conversion made to score heading to halftime 17-14. But the Hornets dominated the second half. After a somewhat successful Poker line out, the baby giraffe struck again as Brad Christ used his long arms to reach over for a try after 47 minutes. Another successful conversion put the Hornets up 24-14, and from there they would never look back. Another nice back line move off a line out win saw Nick put Don in space, with Brian Saak backing up to receive the final pass and score an easy try. The conversion attempt destroyed the makeshift upright and was somehow called no good? The strong Hornet defense kept Sunday scoreless in the second half. Final score was 29-14, with the Hornets picking up the win and the 4-try bonus point. The back line really had some nice movements and it was good to see hard work at practice pay off. Realistically, there were at least two more tries that should have been scored but the last pass just did not go to hand. Smart kicking from Don also turned Sunday around in the second half making it hard for them to get any possession in Hornet territory. In the forwards, Brad Christ kept up his sensational form, Mike Jones was strong running, and Joey Smelt did excellent work in loose play around the field, and in digging balls out of the scrum when it broke down. Man of the match was Nick Kalist who really turned in a great all round performance with back line runs, great tackles, a few turnover balls, and just general leadership all day.
Score – Hornets 29, Sunday 14. (Tries – Brad Christ x2, Donovan Unsworth x1, Brian Saak x1; Conversion - Bearden 3/4; Penalties - Bearden 1/1)
Scrums – Hornets 12/15 (80%), Sunday 5/7 (71%). Scrums didn’t look pretty but great work from Joey managed to save most of our ball!
Line outs – Hornets 6/11 (55%), Sunday 9/13 (69%). Slow start by Kasper adjusting to the wind, but after winning only 1 out of our first 5 we picked it up in the second half. In the second half, the lineouts really provided a great attacking platform for the backs.
Penalties – Hornets 12, Sunday 12.