UK rugby squad draws first blood

In their first game on Australian soil, a touring British Army rugby union team narrowly defeated the Brisbane-based 7 Bde in a match played at Gallipoli Barracks.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the unit’s formation, the Royal Yorkshire Regiment (RYR), which has as its motto ‘Fortune Favours The Brave’, travelled to Australia for a two-week rugby campaign that included games in Queensland and NSW.

Despite strong support from the sidelines for the home team, the RYR clinched the September 30 match 17-14, following a tightly contested second half. The teams went into the half-time break with the scores locked at 7-7.

In the end, the difference between the two teams was the RYR’s powerful backline.

Their coach, CAPT Matt Smart, said the regiment had a long history of participation in sport, which was a big draw for recruitment from Commonwealth countries such as Fiji.

“It was good to see both sides throwing the ball around. I think people might have expected us to turn up and play some boring old-school English rugby, but when you’ve got the talent and the flair of the Fijians, we were always going to throw it around and have a bit of fun,” CAPT Smart said.

“It was a good hit-out. The first 15 minutes was a bit scrappy, but after that both teams settled down into it.

“On another day it could have gone the other way, but it was a great game of end-to-end rugby. It was a proper tour match, I think that is the best way to put it.”

The 7 Bde team coach, PTE Joseph Bredhauer of 6RAR, said the physicality displayed from both sides was impressive.

“For the Yorks, the Fijians were their main strike at the back, but overall an awesome game from both teams,” PTE Bredhauer said.

“We had about a week to prepare, we had a lot of league players in the team, so we were pretty busy converting league players into union players, but the boys picked it up pretty well.”

From Brisbane, the 24-man UK squad travelled on to Sydney for a showdown with the NSW Police team.

See more images from the match.