Well as unofficial match reporter I’m torn. I don’t know what is more productive – to sit here and highlight the flaws, the shocking quality of the tackling at certain stages, the blatantly obvious total lack of fitness across the team or the look on it as a lesson learnt. Instinctively I suspect the latter is a more useful procedure. For those who were with the club last year, a dreadful sense of déjà vu will have been noted- which is why I think it crucial we move forward into this new season, learning from previous matches and implementing what we’ve learnt into future performances.
I don’t think there is a need for a long critical analysis of our performance – everyone who was there knows what went wrong from the beginning. I’ll highlight the most pertinent issues as I see them and please note , no one including me, is totally innocent – we all made mistakes on sat.

Fitness. There you go I said it. F-I-T-N-E-S-S. Horrible word. Training once a week at this point in the season is insufficient to get levels up which means that YOU, the players have to do your own fitness in the week. This means joining a gym, jogging a few times a week, swimming- anything to increase cardio capabilities because if you are not fit, then you can’t tackle or run good lines. It’s that simple.

Tackling- on sat I saw a mix of great defensive tackling and utterly dismal hugging of opposition players. We need continuity. This means perhaps on Tuesday its time to get the tackle bags out and warm the shoulders up. I’m aware at the beginning of the season tackling is often poor because everyone needs to get their eye in and remember how it’s done. So I expect that tackling will increase in quality. That said – I saw some great hits.

Thinking. Another horrible word. But people need to remain calm during matches and THINK about what they are going to do with the ball, and THINK about the angle they are going to run and what the next stage of play will be – I appreciate on sat we have people in positions they hadn’t practiced and it not fair to impose this on them completely, but everyone needs stay calm and THINK.

We need to learn to attack. We need to learn to take the fight to the opposition, and not to wait for them to bring it to us. Time and again we found ourselves on their 22 line and we threw the ball away. Every time. Either through a sloppy lineout or bad handling. We need to smooth out these errors and learn to attack efficiently .

Ok enough of the bad – where do we go from this? Its down to you. This club is what YOU make it. But I will say one thing- there is NO team in this league that we cant beat. Gottit? They are all of a similar level, and NONE of them are unbeatable. The fact that CA put only a few points on us in the second half is indicative of what we can do if we wake up and act together.  

The first 20 mins and the majority of the second half were not bad.

Forwards- I’m pleased with progression, the scrum is coming on nicely, the line-outs will get tighter and rucking is more dynamic. You stayed together and showed a good work rate. Thanks to Tom for hooking- and turning over opposition ball time and time again, thanks to Nico for being very solid and dependable in rucks – thanks to Steph for playing a full match.

Its only fair to give special mention to Will because even though the wally threw me the most interceptable pass ever to be thrown in the history of rugby I think earns the Man of the Match – for several big hits, important ball carrying and a general doggedness in playing that we can all learn from.

Amusing moments included me getting a dead leg not 30 seconds into the game which hampered my running to an extent- 2 Names upending a prop in a doozey of the dump tackle, then NOT getting a penalty awarded against him…methinks the ref rather took against me for some reason when I did it. Must be my air of innocence and fair play.

I’ve probably forgotten important things – but let’s learn from this, move forward and work together. We have some exciting newbies coming into the club who need encouragement and will I suspect become integral to our season- so that’s a positive. We know our fitness is lacking, so we need to work on it. We know our tackling is poor when we are tired – so we need to work on it.

A big thank you to all who gave it their all and made the time for the team – but lets not have any more last minute call offs, if you genuinely can’t make it then let the organizers know in advance, not 12hrs before a match.  

Its vital to stay keen and keep moving forward- Saturdays match is now BEHIND us, we need to build on it and move on.

We also KNOW that no team is better than us if we play like we can.  

Ned

Man of the Match: Will