Did you know?
That last Saturday our 1st XV beat a record set on the 1.6.1918 and again on the 28.4.1962. But before I go any further a bit about what happened back then.
In 1918 Billy Hughes was Prime Minister, we had a King not a Queen, King George V. Our population was just over 5 million. Australia’s first electric train service started and Charlie Chaplin got married.
In 1962, the final section of the Cahill Expressway was open. The Harbour Bridge was only 30 years old. Australia won 38 Gold medals at the Empire games. The Bledisloe Cup was retained by the All Blacks. Gary Player won the Australian Open and Rod Laver won Wimbledon.
So our 1st Grade side beat a 100 year old and 56 year old record for biggest win verses Manly, with their 6 try victory and 41-3 (38 pts) score line. The 1918 score was 43-12 (31 pts) and 1962 46-15 (31 pts).
A big congratulations to Folau Fainga’a on his first Test match verses the All Blacks. He is now Wallaby #923 and our 105th Uni Wallaby, 127th Australian rep, our 28th Colt to come through our system and our 3rd junior club player.
This weekend sees two sides play for the premiership, which have never met in a Grand final before.
With a game to go, James Kane is now our second highest points scorer in 1st Grade history with 223 and only David Loxton in front of him on 238 set in 1983. James can also reach his 850 career points this week, he is currently on 844.
James is also the 36th player to be highest points scorer and most tries in a 1st grade season since Michael O’Meara in 1866 started it off.
Stu Dunbar’s intercept try in the Semi final brought up the Clubs 450th try this year, which also put Stu on 399 career points.
Sam Renton pasted his 400 career points with his secondtry in the 2nd grade game vs Easts.
We have a hooker/back rower who reached 100 points for this season. Ben Carolan has now scored 19 tries and 3 goals for 101 points.
Lachlan Argiris scored his 20th career try (100 pts) in 3rd Grade since 2015 Colts.
Will Wennerbom shall have to wait till next season and he only needed 3 more points for his seasons 250 points and the same 3 points for his 400 career points.
Alex Batho may get one game if he gets on in the Grand final this week, which will take him to 98 Grade games. He can stand next to Will.
And along with Alex we should have 5 maybe 6 new centurions next year, with Cameron Lawrence, Stu Nutt, Chris Ingate, Dave McDuling and possibly Jake Gordon.
Trivia stat: Sam Renton and Eddy King were equal highest scorers in our 2nd Grade team, both finished on 87 points.
It had to happen one day and it did. The first time since 1994 that a Uni Colts team wasn’t in a Grand Final.
1996 was the last time we only had one team in a Grand Final from Grade/Colts till this Saturday at North Sydney Oval.
Well done to Alex Simson who reached his 50 points in Colts last Saturday, with a try in the close 3rd Colts game.