The victory margin appears comfortable on paper, however this was far from the perfect performance. The first half saw dominance switch between the teams throughout the half, as the Vikings appeared to have some early nerves to overcome, however as the match wore on their superiority in attack and their structured systems shone through.

Ahead of this first fixture the Vikings coaches were clear in the way they want their side to play this season, with tempo and pace to stretch opposition defences whilst working in conjunction with their structured game plan which they have worked on all preseason.

On Saturday the Vikings early on showed glimpses of this new structure as they started the brighter of the two sides. After the first kick off in which Jon laws gathered the ball with a solid catch in the opposition half, the black and yellows were on the front foot. They moved the ball well around the park, and after several minutes they broke the deadlock. Taylor Quate running a nice line back inside to evade the St Francis defence and have a free run to the try line. Alec Bailey missed the extras.

This was to be the last period of positive play for quite some time from the visitors, as St Francis took hold of the ball and tested the Vikings defence with their big runners. Early on this caused issues, and the home side were able to take advantage of some poor tackling to gain ground. They also were on the right side of the referees whistle as the visitors were penalised on multiple occasions and struggled to keep hold of the ball on any occasion that they did win it back. This pressure eventually told as St Francis dived over from short range to take the lead with a converted try.

St Jacques then earned a simple 3 points in front of goal, after a small period of positive pressure brought a penalty, however their lead was to be short lived as once again poor discipline & weak defending allowed the big St Francis runners in for another converted try.

This finally appeared to awaken the Vikings, who had a strong chat amongst themselves before play resumed. After that they appeared to handle the referee much better, and were no longer infringing regularly and giving away the ball. Their structure began to stretch St Francis again, and a gap opened for Ben Holland to skip through and take the lead before halftime. Bailey added the conversion to stretch lead into the halftime break.

The second half was very much a different story, as the Vikings defence improved considerably, and they were regularly stretching the home defence with strong carries from the forwards, before moving the ball wide and allowing in particular Leon Collenette and Taylor Quate to find acres of space and scoring opportunities. The visitors butchered several try scoring opportunities before Taylor Quate grabbed his second try of the afternoon. Brad Webb then extended the lead with a good try out wide outpacing the chasing defence, before Leon Collenette added two tries in the last quarter. Bailey converted both Collenette tries.

Vikings were now in a lethal mood, and looked likely to continue scoring tries to the very end however a serious looking neck injury to a St Francis player brought about an early finish to the game, as both captains agreed to call the game early as they could not move the player. Thankfully after a period of assessment by paramedics the player was found to be okay with no serious injuries.

For the Vikings first fixture this showed the potential that the side has, however it also identified that plenty of work is still to be done if they wish to be successful this season.