Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 21, 2025
If Dencroft's, by means of second and third places in the long races and the other events which were certainties for their opponents, could hold the School House, Fenn's sprinting might just give them the cup. In the meantime they trained hard, but in an unobtrusive fashion which aroused no fear in School House circles.
In that quarter of an hour they scored three times, and finished the game with two goals and three tries to their name. The School looked on it as a huge joke. "Heard the latest?" friends would say on meeting one another the day after the game. "Kay's I mean Dencroft's have won a match. They simply sat on Blair's. First time they've ever won a house-match, I should think. Blair's are awfully sick.
But Maybury, the jumper, made up for lack of pace by the scientific way in which he took his hurdles, and won off him by a couple of feet. Smith, Dencroft's second string, finished third, thus leaving the totals unaltered by the race. By this time the public had become alive to the fact that Dencroft's were making a great fight for the cup.
When the School House, with three first fifteen men in its team, fell before them, the reputation of Dencroft's was established. It had reached the final, and only Blackburn's stood now between it and the cup. All this while Blackburn's had been doing what was expected of them by beating each of their opponents with great ease.
At one time or another, it seemed, half the School had opposed Dencroft's in the ranks of a scratch side. It began to dawn on Eckleton that in an unostentatious way Dencroft's had been putting in about seven times as much practice as any other three houses rolled together. No wonder they combined so well.
But to balance the mile there was the quarter, and in the mile Kennedy contrived to beat Crake by much the same number of feet as Crake had beaten him by in the half. The scores of the two houses were now level, and a goodly number of the School House certainties were past. Dencroft's forged ahead again by virtue of the quarter-mile.
Dencroft's was not depressed. It put the result down to a fluke. Then they beat another side by a try to nothing; and by that time they had got going as an organised team, and their heart was in the thing. They had improved out of all knowledge when the house-matches began. Blair's was the lucky house that drew against them in the first round. "Good business," said the men of Blair.
And though Dencroft's never went to pieces, and continued to show fight to the very end, Blackburn's were not to be denied, and Challis scored a final try in the corner. Blackburn's won the cup by the comfortable, but not excessive, margin of a goal and three tries to a goal. Dencroft's had lost the cup; but they had lost it well. Their credit had increased in spite of the defeat.
There was nothing sensational about this as there was in the case of Dencroft's. The latter were, therefore, favourites when the two teams lined up against one another in the final. The School felt that a house that had had such a meteoric flight as Dencroft's must by all that was dramatic carry the thing through to its obvious conclusion, and pull off the final.
But Fenn and Kennedy were not so hopeful. A certain amount of science, a great deal of keenness, and excellent condition, had carried them through the other rounds in rare style, but, though they would probably give a good account of themselves, nobody who considered the two teams impartially could help seeing that Dencroft's was a weaker side than Blackburn's.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking