An upset Riyadh coach Simon Hill said after the match, “The game was extremely scrappy from both sides and a very disappointing game all round. While both sides threw some punches, some of the off the ball action from Jeddah was unacceptable, requiring two players medical treatment as a result of unnecessary violence.” It also delivered a badly broken Jeddah leg.
Whatever caused the ruction, the tension between the two sides ratcheted up as the game proceeded with Jeddah in the lead for a respectable part of it.
For the first quarter the sides furiously contested territory but the points drought was eventually broken Riyadh’s Dave Andrews who opened the scoring with an unconverted try after 20 minutes. A snappy pass from the scrum, swift movement along the line and a fine run along the left yielded the score.
Both teams were equally determined to prove a point about physical play. After just 10 minutes Aboud Khuyamis one of the hardest workers in the Jeddah side and forever piercing the Riyadh defense was carried off the field with a badly broken leg (lower tibia). It came after a particularly violent encounter involving being tackled simultaneously by two Riyadh players, one high up the body (but not illegally so), the leg described by onlookers as “held” on the ground by another.
Four minutes after the Riyadh try that caused a sharp intake of breath from Jeddah supporters, Andy Kennedy snatched the ball in the line out, flicked it out to the fly-half who delivered it upfield with a mighty up and under. It was pursued by wing Iyer Sou Miyake whose reassuringly sticky hands took the ball and with a great nimbleness rounded Riyadh’s full back to score under the posts. Captain Matt Jay potted the extra two points for Jeddah putting them ahead.
It was Jay again who literally put his body on the line when some excellent overlap work from Riyadh left an open door in Jeddah’s left corner that needed a dose of heroics to prevent a try. A crunching Jay tackle saw the attack stopped and Jay himself slamming into the wickedly sharp concrete edging of the field where he ended up bruised but not broken.
Jeddah stayed ahead until the dying minutes of the first half when Riyadh’s John Kerins slotted an easy penalty against Jeddah leaving the score at 8-7 to Riyadh at the whistle with all to play for.
Lively team talks at halftime and battle restarted from the start of the second half. Four minutes in, Jeddah’s Graham Catley and Andrew Kennedy tackled a fast moving Riyadh winger and bundled him into touch. The lineout to Jeddah saw the ball buried in a maul that heaved its way across the Riyadh line where the ball was grounded by a vigilant Peter Miller, with the conversion missed. Jeddah 12, Riyadh 8.
A courageous charge down by Jeddah’s Jarrid Muhlenberg had him chasing the ball for the few remaining yards to the line but aggravatingly the ball went out of play a split second before it was touched down.
By now, Jeddah had their tails up scenting a possible turnaround and Riyadh knew it. As the game began to fray at the edges, so did the discipline and 11 minutes into the second half, to put it in Riyadh’s Simon Hill’s words a; “disgusting full arm punch on Riyadh loosehead prop Casey Blatch knocked him out and took him out of game.”
The terminal strike came at the end of a maul-centered sequence of pushing, shoving and ill tempered brawling from wound-up players fired up to win. It also brought some sense temporarily back into the match.
A few minutes after the restart, Jeddah was called offside and Riyadh’s outside center Ben Lock put them within one point of Jeddah.
The fireworks were however not over and neither team appeared to be in any mood to return to disciplined rugby. “A double punch,” according to Hill, “on Riyadh Fly Half Tim Jardine took him out of the game with severely bruised jaw.” It also got Jeddah’s Archie Frame, who it is reported had taken a few “touchy-feelies” himself his marching orders with a yellow card.
From the touchline, events on field seemed a pretty homogeneous mix of provocation and response from both sides and few would walk away from this game as innocent bystanders.
From here on the game belonged to Ben Lock who took over the duties from fly half Jardine. A penalty for an offside infringement and a magnificent individual try eight minutes from time saw him breaking through a number of tackles before reaching for the line. He sealed the game by converting his try.
Riyadh has some fine experienced players and ex-internationals. The best team in the Kingdom this year and perhaps the last five, this match Hill opined; “was not a good way to end the season for either side. I have never seen a team of players so disappointed with a win, where we should have been celebrating.”
Nothing is ever one sided.
