A Semesa Rokoduguni hat trick and a pair of tries from Senitiki Nayalo anchored the Army’s winning effort in a nine-try thriller against the Royal Air Force at Kingsholm Stadium.
Rokoduguni rolled back the years on the wing with two tries which showcased his ability to step through the first tackle and accelerate away from a flurry of other defenders to the whitewash.
Two teams with a point to prove often provide outstanding entertainment, and this was certainly the case here, as the red shirts and light blues served up a lung-busting 80 minutes to share nine tries, plenty of which were of the highest quality.
Both outfits had come to the west country with intent to play.
The Army’s pace, power and directness through the middle combined with Rokoduguni’s irrepressible partnership with outside centre Solodrau Radianirova to ask question after question of the RAF’s defence.
Coming the other way was fly half, Mark Williams, who led from the front to scythe through the red shirts’ midfield time and again. One break led to a James Robertson try in the right corner, but after that it was a case of the ‘if only’s’ for the light blues.
Williams missed his pass to Sam Boxhall after another scything run, Kieron Prescott fired a pass into touch, and Jacob Seddon saw a ball die in front of him when the line was at his mercy.
At the other end only a superb Jack O’Regan tackle stopped Jack Johnson finishing a counter-attack.
That profligacy was punished just past the half-hour. For all the offloading on show it was a bit of hard running which did the damage, the impressive Frank Kelly going straight over an attempted tackle and into the clear. Nayalo was on the centre’s shoulder for the try, Johnson landing the conversion.
Rokoduguni was alert to Michael MacDonald’s break down the blind side for his second, before Nayalo tapped a penalty just before the break.
With Player of the Match, Matthew Dawson, also scoring soon after the restart all of a sudden the RAF were facing a 21-point mountain to climb.
They came oh-so-close to achieving that goal, too, with quickfire tries from Kieron Prescott and O’Regan, and were always looking to keep the ball alive and spread the play.
Having done so much to work their way back into the contest the RAF would have been disappointed by the nature of Rokoduguni’s third try, a simple hand-off putting the winger into the clear.
Again the RAF came, and with Peter Austin in the sin bin Harry Davies tapped quickly to put Zack Taylor over. There was still time on the clock for Joe Parkin to be put into the clear, only for play to be brought back for players being in front of Ryan Pugh’s dangerous kick ahead, but not enough to grab what would have been a dramatic draw.
“I couldn’t do what I do without the rest of the squad, it’s a team performance,” Rokoduguni said.
“It was tough. We’re used to winning the game in the first half, but now the RAF put in decent performances, and to be honest I was nervous.
“The coaches weren’t happy with the first half performance, especially our discipline.
“But in the end it was good to be back for the Army, as this is where everything began for me. It’s an honour and a privilege to represent the Army. Coming back in was something I was looking forward to.”
For RAF Head Coach, Tom Gardner, the first half missed opportunities were crucial.
“Risk and reward is how we play,” he said. “Sometimes you get on the right side of that and you will get better as a team to do that. Ultimately we had three opportunities to exit our red zone, we did not do that, and were punished twice.
“I’m so proud of our boys. First and foremost they’re proud servicemen first and proud rugby players second, and they showed signs of what RAF rugby’s identity will be in the future.
“I’ve tried to keep professional boundaries with the boys in terms of selection and making them perform better in training. Our journey has been outstanding this season. In my first game against Rams in October we had something like 10 Under-23s, and six of them have stayed with us for the whole journey.
“It’s impact on the team I believe we’ll see next season. For the first time in five years we have been in touching distance and take points away from the Army, and if the game had been 10 more minutes we could have done that.
“We’re going to invest in youth. We’re going to play high risk rugby and score tries, and we’re going to make Service rugby and RAF rugby exciting.”
Words © Inter Service Championship
All images © Army Rugby Union – Alligin Photography
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