by Scamp's words. They then broke off before the captain could notice their brief lack of hustle and ran into their set positions to get ready for the opening kick of the match and season.

Amity lined up on the halfway line, ready to kick and charge, and the Cheshire players spread around their half of the field to be ready to attack once the ball was taken by them. Once all players were in their positions, the referee stood on the halfway line and looked around a couple of times to make sure the linesman and scorers were ready to begin. Once he confirmed, he put his whistle to his lips and blew the opening signal:

"PEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!"

His whistle sounded and Dreamer immediately drop-kicked the match rugby ball towards his opposition team. His fellow Amity players then ran from the halfway line and towards where the ball travelled. As soon as the ball was caught, the two teams collided and the physical battle of rugby had begun.

For the first 6 minutes both teams went back and forth with defensive kicking and several lineouts, in which none had been won against the throw. Scamp had not dropped a ball when being lifted in the lineout and Mooch and Carson were doing the hard yards with the lifting; but they were also driving hard in the rucks to keep possession and attempting to counter ruck when on defense.

But at the sixth minute, 32 meters out from Amity's line, the referee blew his whistle and awarded a penalty to Cheshire for Amity flanker Jordan not releasing the tackled player after the ruck was formed. Cheshire decided to go for the penalty goal and successfully kicked the ball through the posts to earn three points and the first numbers of the match onto the scoreboard: 0-3

At the 11th minute, hooker Archie McDowd failed to throw a ball in straight at the lineout and a scrum was awarded to Cheshire. 

"Crouch!" the referee ordered as the forwards binded and were about to engage to contest. "Touch!" The props touched each other's shoulders. "Pause! Engage!"

The front rowers moved forward and locked heads to engage the scrum. Unfortunately both teams pushed too hard and the front collapsed and hit the ground.

"PEEP!" The referees whistle blew for half a second.

"Restart the scrum, boys. Hold it up or I am going to penalize the main offender." He strictly ordered to both teams.

They engaged again but this time Mooch went too early before the referee gave the signal. Therefore he blew the whistle for 2 seconds this time (it is a short sound for a minor infringement and a long sound for a penalty call) before holding his arm up in a straight diagonal direction towards Cheshire's side. Mooch had been penalized for early engagement and the referee called him over for a short chat, along with Amity's captain:

"Dreamer, number 3 has been pulled up for driving early. That is the second infringement he has made. If he does it again, he is going off for ten minutes. So he has got to settle down. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir." Dreamer replied in slight concern at Mooch's lack of composure. He decided to speak to his prop to clear it up: "Stop getting carried away, Mooch. Keep calm and focused. Remember, we have to play defensively by holding them back and keeping the scrum up. Save the driving for when they fatigue, alright?"

"Right, right." Mooch replied. "Sorry about that, 'kay."

"It's fine, now get back ten meters. Go!"

And they both joined the team and waited for Cheshire's penalty decision. They decided to go for another penalty kick. At this point they were a little further from the goal post at 42 metres and a bit further left of the field. But their kicker managed precision and distance once again and kicked it through the uprights. The lead was now slightly extended to 0-6.

At the 23rd minute, Amity received a penalty just behind the halfway line for Cheshire being offside at the advantage line and Dreamer decided to kick to touch. Longest punter and outside centre Vivian Prestona kicked long enough to get his team 16 metres out from the Cheshire end zone. They won the lineout throw and formed a driving maul. They pushed closer and closer to the try line before Number 8  Spanner Blignaut, with the ball in hand at the back of the maul, broke away 3 metres out and dove across the try line before he could get caught and scored. The score was now 5-6.

"Brilliant try, team!" Dreamer yelled in delight to his team. "Great hustle and good driving; and great finish, Spanner. You're hanging in tough there, boys! Very well done! Now let's get back."

Full back Moody Thomson then lined up for the conversion on the 22 with a half-diagonal angle view of the posts and eased the kick through to take the score to 7-6.

At the 31st minute, Cheshire received yet another penalty from 47 metres out from the line for Tramp, at inside centre, not releasing the ball when in the ruck. Cheshire went for yet another kick, but this time the ball went wide of the posts, and the score remained at 7-6.

At the 39th minute, Scamp, playing second rower, took the ball from a breakdown pass from scrum half Scratchy and ran to gain a few metres when a Cheshire flanker hit him hard at the waist, grabbed his right leg, lifted him off the ground and slammed him to the pitch; almost getting Scamp neck-first. The referee immediately blew his whistle for 3 seconds and put his arm out towards Amity's side to award them a penalty. He then called the offending flanker over to talk with him; and he knew that it was not going to be good, because the sideline spectators exclaimed and booed when they saw that illegal tackle on Scamp and began chanting, "Off, off, off!": They wanted him to be sent to the sin bin.

"You are not allowed to lift the player and throw him to the ground." The referee strictly instructed to the flanker. "You could have snapped his neck. I am not going to tolerate a dangerous tackle like that. You are off for ten minutes." And in saying that, he pulled out his card wallet and showed his yellow card to the flanker to signal that he would be sent off the field for ten minutes for his committed foul. As he left the playing area for the sideline, much of the home crowd cheered in a feeling that he deserved his punishment for almost seriously injuring one their club's representatives. This sin bin call meant that Cheshire were now restricted to 14 players on the field.

Amity trainers Katrina and Gilderoy had come onto the field to check on Scamp, who was still lying on the grass in a slight state of shock from the aggressive tackle that was put onto him. He lay there for several minutes before he was able to get to his feet again. The trainers said that it was nothing serious but he needed a little time to rest off the shock suffered. They then gave him the clear to continue playing.

"You alright, Scamp?" Dreamer asked him when he joined the team time-out hustle.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Scamp replied. "Just needed to rest off the shock from the tackle. I was lucky that he didn't dump me on my neck."

"Thank goodness that he didn't, my boy." Tramp remarked in relief for his son's safety. "I do not want to see you go to hospital too soon."

"Nor do I, pop." Scamp replied. "That goes for everyone here."

"Let's pray for that to be." Dreamer put in before getting back onto the game. "Now let me talk to the referee."

He decided to go for another penalty kick. At this point Moody was 26 metres from the posts and directly in front, so it was an easy kick for him. As expected he slotted it though and took the game score to 10-6. The siren from the sheds soon sounded and the referee blew his whistle 3 times to signal halftime. The players jogged off the pitch and into their team sheds to rest the fatigue, reenergize, and do the talks for the game.

"Bring it in boys!" Reede said to his canine rugby players as they came into the sheds and sat down on the benches. "Get yourselves some water and eat some oranges. I want you to stay hydrated and energized." 

So the team grabbed their essential fluids and source of energy intake and sat down to listen to the head coach's halftime talk:

"Alright, team, this is a pretty good start. Your handling of the ball is excellent and the unforced errors count is pretty low. Plus the passes are not too aggressive. You are keeping them simple and not risking long passes or unnecessary offloads. So the patience that you are showing is excellent. You are also showing plenty of breakdown support and we didn't lose possession too many times from counter rucking. That shows the intensity that you are bringing under the intense pressure. Keep holding onto that for the rest of the game." He then moved onto the negative parts of the game: "However, there were a few penalties given away to Cheshire for constant ruck infringements by us. I noticed, Mooch and Jordan, that on two occasions you got pulled up for engaging early and failing to release a tackled player. Remember to wait for the referee's decision to engage and refrain from pushing too hard in order to hold the scrum upright; and ALWAYS roll away after you have tackled the player. Just keep in mind that you can hold the dog you are tackling until the ruck is formed. Once the ruck is formed, that is when you know that you have to release the player and roll away. Anyway, other than that, you are all playing hard."

"That's right, Coach." Captain Dreamer took over. "But we have to keep the intensity up and we have to keep the composure when running with the ball. Keep the offensive speed at a