Imperial Brush Aside the Medics

After a poor first performance against UCL last week, IC Rugby’s 1st XV desperately needed to turn up with their heads switched on. Playing in the league against varsity rivals, Imperial Medics, IC were looking to give them a repeat performance of last year’s victory at The Stoop. The atmosphere in the changing room was charged, to say the least, with a near emotional wreck of a captain, Mike O’Connell, tearfully explaining to the team that “we do not lose to Medics”. Bearing that in mind, as well as a few bruises from Jack Flanagan’s pre-match head-butts, the team stepped out onto the pitch to a roar from the crowd of nearly a dozen spectators. IC kicked to start, and the game was underway. The aggression from the offset was much improved on last week, and after a few big hits from both the forwards and the back line it quickly became clear that the Medics didn’t want to know. The scoring opened mid-way through the first half with a gazelle-like Freddie White dancing through the opposition on a counter attack from the halfway line. Placing it under the posts, it was an easy conversion. It was 7-0 to the College. Falling back on the team’s strengths, IC crossed the white line again soon after off the back of a driving maul with Tom Hedley getting the score. Unfortunately, the conversion attempt bounced back off the uprights leaving the scoreboard at 12-0. A Medic attack brought them close to the IC line, but a dogged scramble defence and solid tackling kept a clean sheet. Pushing back into the middle of the pitch the crowd went wild as our prop fresher, Tom, ripped the ball from a maul to burst up the pitch on a legendary debut break. Following this, IC were soon in a threatening attack position, once more using the driving maul from a lineout to score a well-executed set piece try. Unfortunately, the referee didn’t seem to agree and the try was questionably disallowed. Moving into the second half the game continued at the same pace. Solid tackling from the entire team stunted the Medic attack and despite conceding a penalty within 5 metres of the line, our defensive line soon pushed them back to 15 metres out and solid work at the breakdown resulted in a key turnover. Some confusion as to what game we were playing resulted in our back line booting the ball some 50 metres up the pitch with great interlinking play between the wing and centre forward. However, the ball didn’t quite go to hand and the opportunity was wasted with an unlucky knock on 5 metres from their line. From the back of a scrum on the Medic’s 10 metre line a well executed back line move left 1st XV debutant Jon Mann in plenty of space to burn down the left wing and score a well deserved try amidst screams of ‘F**king yes!’ from our vocal captain. A missed conversion left the score at 17-0. Further pressure in the Medic’s half led to yet another driving maul mildly encouraged from the side line by IC’s reserved head coach. A well-organised pack controlled by Tom Hedley at the back allowed a long drive up the touchline and a second score by Hedley in the final minutes of the game. With less than 90 seconds to go, James Cox calmly took his time in slotting a difficult conversion through the middle of the posts from near the sideline. The final whistle blew with a satisfying final score of 24-0 to Imperial College. After the cheers subsided and songs were sung, a night of celebrations ensued; a fitting evening to award club ties to the Freshers.