A tough bruising encounter between the Barbarians and Arawaks took place Friday night with the boys in red running away with a 55-4 victory. Photo credit: Charlie E. Jackson/VINO

The floodgates opened early and often as the Barbarians with pro's and semi pro's amongst their ranks took advantage of the younger Arawak team. Photo credit: Charlie E. Jackson/VINO

The Barbarians were constantly pushing the Arawks back defensively, quick to support each other and seemingly always winning the second phase ball to maintain their offensive momentum. Photo credit: Charlie E. Jackson/VINO

Austin Kiel, who played earlier in the day for Cedar in the Inter High School Rugby Championship, had few chances to show his skill, but did have one or two electrifying runs. Photo credit: Charlie E. Jackson/VINO

With a large, appreciative crowd lining the touchline it took the Barbarians just over 5 minutes to open the scoring, but by then their superiority in the scum, rucks and mauls had already been established.

Ade Mather scored the first try after some dominating forward play from the Barbarians and it didn’t matter much that the attempted conversion failed as the floodgates had been well and truly opened.

Although the Arawaks were virtually camped inside their own 22, a breakaway kick and chase by Victor, served notice on the Barbarians of the speed they were facing and the potential of the younger, less experienced Arawaks.

So warned the Barbarians pressed forward, but more importantly stopped the Arawaks from being able to move the ball quickly wide, winning almost every loose ball and applying pressure on the Arawaks back line.

More scores were inevitable under the constant driving runs from the Barbarians forwards and by the end of the first half the score had rattled along to 26-0.

The Arawaks did have a chance to score at the end of the half when they found themselves on the Barbarians 5 yard line for a lengthy spell of probing play, but they conceded a penalty and the Barbarians broke forward via a quickly taken kick. Mather, Matt Holmes, who was playing as a professional in England two years ago and Jerome Springette combined in a flowing move which was eventually stopped by Rory Thornton. However, the Barbarians won the loose ball and Ron Kusjcak tumbled over the line having run some 50 yards to keep up with the play.

The second half began pretty much as the first, with the Barbarians surging deep into Arawak Territory and beginning to score at will.

Kuscjak scored his second “dummying” the defense and diving over through the gap. Springette atoned for an early mistake when he “touched down” well before the try line and Drum also added to his points total for the night.

The Arawaks did finally break through to bring the crowd to their feet when Donovan Staples broke down the middle, rode a couple of challenges and passed to Jimmy Peters who outpaced the last defender, down the right hand side and scored under the posts.

Unfortunately Andrew Simmonds hit the post with his attempted conversion and the score finished 54-5

“Fair play to the Arawaks” commented Kuscjak “they had a few players withdraw at the last minute and were full of under 19 players. They were inexperienced, but the best way to learn is by playing against good sides”

The Barbarians were strengthened by some new arrivals including Matt Holmes, Matt Drum, who also played representative Rugby for the Irish U19’s, John Addo and the returning Johnny Bailey

As for his own tries, Kuscjak noted he couldn’t remember the first one as he had run 50 yards “having got to the ball I just concentrated on getting over the line. The defender was maybe 15 years old and 12 stone, so it wasn’t really fair. The second one, though, I sold the defender a dummy and I don’t know who it was but thank you!”

With a hat trick of Tries and 3 or 4 conversions, Drum was the game’s top scorer by far and although he hurt his toe in the second half and found the ground very hard was happy with his first game in the BVI “I really enjoyed it” he said “they tackled really hard, but we combined as team better than I had thought we would given a disjointed build up with training, but overall pretty happy with the ways things went

Staples was philosophical in defeat and not too worried “we were up against some pro’s, semi pro’s and some very experienced players” he commented “for some of us it was our first proper game, we had a lot of under 19 players and will have learnt a lesson tonight.

Staples did remind people that the score line didn’t really reflect the way his team had played and warned the Barbarians that come the seven a side games in November, the Arawaks are reigning Champions and will be ready to defend that Title!!