Did you know:
Our first game against Randwick was back on the 1.6.1889, between a Uni 3rd Grade side verses a Randwick 2nd Grade team at the Association Cricket Ground, Uni won 26-3 that day. Our first game in the 1st XV against them was 4.7.1892, Uni were victorious,14-7. Which brings us to Coogee Oval last Saturday where we won again 40-18, 6 tries to 2. But this was a special win, as it was SUFC’s 100th 1st Grade win verses the ‘Wick’s’, which took some 127 years to achieve. So our win/loss tally is now 100 wins 114 losses and 11 draws. We are slowly turning those totals around these days. When I joined the Club in 1998 our tally was 71 wins 92 losses and 8 draws.
These two clubs have been very close in games for a long time and even last weekend they shared the honours with 3 wins each and a draw. Our average score from way back till now is 18-18.
With our 1st XV winning their past 4 games in row, we must remember we have done so with many players injured that started the season in 1st grade and who were part of last year’s Grand Final team. They are Stu Dunbar, Henry Clunies-Ross, Matt Sandell, Tim Clements, Guy Porter, William Cocker, Will McDonnell, Theo Strang and Banjo Travers.
The club has some fine try scorers, but not all are backs. You see our forwards know were the try line is and reach it often. Such as Tom Horton who scored three tries in 1st Grade’s win which takes him to 18 career tries of which 7 have been in 1st Grade in just a season and a half. In fact Tom is the first player since Theo Strang scored 3 tries in round 5 against Gordon in 2018 and also only the 79th 1st Grader to do this since 1882.
In fact our hookers this season have found the try line often, Declan Moore 13 (leading try scorer in the Club), Will Ridley 5, Tom Horton 4, Ben Carolan 2 and our Japanese import Fujiyama Yutaro has one. That’s a total 25 between them.
When Tom Osborne did the BIG dive over the ruck to score in 1st Grade’s win, he must have known it was the club’s 200th try this season as he made it look so good!
Big welcome back to some clubman who ran on last Saturday. Stefano Hunt back to add to his 38 club games and 24 1st Grade games in 4th Grade. Stefano last played for the Club back in 2014. Last year’s Premiership winning Captain Rohan O’Regan, played in 2nds and went on in 1st Grade late in the game also Tim Clements who due to back surgery hasn’t played since the Grand Final last year.
Wayne Borsak played his 50th Club game in the main game on Saturday.
A few other milestones were Ben Carolan scoring his 40th try or 200 career points.
Sam Renton (pictured) scored a try to bring up his 150th point in tries alone. Sam is now on 424 career points at Uni.
Will Wennerbom was again on fire and with 2 goals and 3 penalty goals kicked, including the final goal to win 2nd Grade’s game by 23-20. Will brought up his 150th point for this season.
Hopefully this weekend against Manly James Kane can reach his 100 points in 1st Grade this season. He is on 94 at the moment, James’ last four season’s totals are 2015 – 156 pts, 2016 -174 pts, 2017- 281 pts, 2018 – 251 pts and 2019 (to date) – 94 pts.
Talking of points Bernard Foley is sitting on 1093 Waratah career points and 399 goals/pen goals. No one has ever reached 1100 at the Waratahs. Hopefully he can in New Zealand next week.
In Colts Max Robson is set to become our first Colts centurian for the season, now on 91 points, while Thomas Latu is the Colts leading try scorer with 9.