The Advance Fire & Plumbing Buccaneers were distraught as a resurgent Century 21 Cayman Storm won only their second game of the 2013 Cayman Rugby domestic season with a dramatic one point victory.
The Buccaneers, going into the final week of the season in first place, knew that a victory over the Storm would seal the league trophy after six weeks of hard hitting rugby.
The pundits also saw victory for the Buccaneers as a forgone conclusion based on their run of form in the build up to the final round of play mixed with playing the bottom of the table side.
But Cayman Storm, enjoying an almost full squad, were on the scoreboard first when No. 8 Phil Thompson broke the Buccaneers defence after eight minutes.
The Buccaneers responded soon thereafter with a score from Shaun Gerrard and a nail-biting see-saw battle ensued between the teams.
Storm hooker Al Forget, returning from injury, brought a big smile to the bench by going over in the corner for the team’s second before the Buccaneers responded again with a Michael Peck score.
Storm marched into the second half with a four point lead, 17-13, after Thompson secured his second try for the day with Josh Brown getting the conversion.
Both the Queensgate Pigs Trotters and the John Doak Architecture Iguanas were rooting on Cayman Storm to keep their momentum going in the knowledge that a win for the Storm gave one final opportunity to the second placed Iguanas and third placed Pigs Trotters to win the league.
Storm stalwart Vanassio Tokatokavanua earned a bonus point for his team by taking the field in the second half and soon after gave his team their fourth try with Brown earning his second conversion to ring in 24 points. Then it was all hands on deck to stop the Buccaneers’ push for the win.
The Buccaneers, looking at an 11 point deficit, scored a big try through Mark Stabler and the conversion from Morgan Shelford made the score 24-20.
With the clock winding down, the Buccaneers earned a final penalty, which Shelford duly converted, to close the gap to one point. But that was as close as they got as the Buccaneers were stifled and the Storm secured one of the biggest upsets in Cayman domestic rugby history, winning 24-23.
With the league decider handed to the Pigs Trotters and Iguanas, the Iguanas knew that a win of any size would hand them the league crown whereas a second win for the Pigs Trotters over the Iguanas would either gift the trophy back to the Buccaneers or, should the Pigs Trotters win by a large enough points difference then they would raise the Alex Alexander Memorial Trophy.
The Iguanas were intent on playing a smarter game after their big loss to the Buccaneers and were first on the board with a Doug Kennedy penalty before the Pigs Trotters responded with a Chris Haines unconverted try to make the score 5-3.
The Pigs Trotters used their dangerous back line to great effect in the early exchanges with James Waters and Dave Acut making long runs against the Iguanas back line whilst the Iguanas forwards chose a much tighter game with hit ups from Ben McDonald and Peter de Vere being the order of the day.
An Acut penalty gave the Pigs some breathing room 8-3 before Iguanas inside centre Adam Keenan found his way to the try line, which was converted by Doug Kennedy to regain the lead 10-8.
Kennedy had two more kickable penalties to give his team some breathing room, but those sailed wide before Acut regained the lead once more, 11-10, heading towards the half.
Kennedy made amends on the stroke of half time by slotting a long penalty kick to give his team some momentum in the second half with a 13-11 lead.
A nervy second half saw the Iguanas playing momentarily without fullback Walter Myers who was binned for offside before the Pigs Trotters were forced to make personnel changes having lost Haines at fly-half.
Both teams exchanged one more penalty each to ring in the score of 16-14 and a jubilant John Doak Architecture Iguanas side raised the Alex Alexander memorial Trophy for the third time in four years.
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