Club Sportif des PTT Paris vs BRFC Paris 10 - 18

Everyone says that when you’re a member of a British club playing outside of the UK there are no easy games, and boy is that true in this division.

Straight off the back of two substantial losses, and on their home ground - which was by far the worst I’ve ever seen, CPTT were up for it. This was always going to be the game they wanted to turn their season around with. They knew a pitch covered in grit, and debris, no flag’s and an annoyingly greasy rain would level the game in their favour, and from the off they absolutely ripped into us. Taking us to task up front physical, and frequently overstepping the boundaries of confrontation, we were on the back foot for much of the opening 15 minutes leading to them scoring with a trail of bodies strewn behind them.

Picking ourselves up from that, and with the exit of Rob with a serious head injury, we knuckled down and went through our game plan, testing out their defence, turning them when we could and moving the ball when it was on. Taking them left to right we went close a few times but never seemed to quite make it those last few yards, until a clever delayed pass from Big Ally Borthwick set Colum free who in turn fed Quentin on the cut back to crash over for the first score. 7-5 to CPTT

From the kick off we again played our rugby in their half, turning them with kicks to the corner and then moving them left to right. I think it’s safe to say we played most of the rugby in this game. Their cover defence was very good however and it was a while before a counter attack saw the ball moved through the outside backs hands to Colum who after some quick interpassing showed good pace and strength to finish in the corner. 7-10 to BRFC at half time.

Second half was pretty much all about us. With the midfield constantly turning them and pinning them back it must have been a pretty soul destroying game for their pack, who worked all day only to find themselves 40-50 meters back where we’d kicked long and chased strong to put pressure on their back three. The one time they did get into our half they kicked a penalty to level the score and then from that kick off they never got past our 10 meter again.

A lovely dummy switch between Alex and Colum saw the big man from Gloucester prancing over for his debut BRFC try, and shortly after he kicked a huge penalty to take the game out of their reach. From then on we just kept pinning them back in their 22 until the last few minutes when chasing the bonus point the backs and back row started to sling it about.

Aaaand that’s pretty much it. Another win, another four points, and we maintain our league position of fifth, with the teams above us being three for three.

There were lots of good things in the game, we took on a huge pack and once we’d tired them out we took the game away from them with a high tempo game plan. There was strong work from the back row of Paul, Fred and Nick who more then held their own against a big physical back row, and there was another great performance from John and Rick in the second row. Tom again looked very comfortable running things at 9, and Alex and Colum taught heir opposite numbers how to do the basics well for the duration of the game. Good play from the back three of Sam, Mark and Quentin in the first half meant we were never caught behind the pack, and strong running and some great counter attacking from Yan in the second half injected a lot of pace and changed the shape of our game.

Man of the match birthday boy Colum, closely followed by Mark, Alex, John and Paul.

Couple of points for improvement though, we’re still over committing to the rucks, which means the first guys in are not doing the job properly. We’re getting there in numbers, but we’re too upright and not driving past the ball for the next man to seal. At the moment we’re sending the majority of our guys into win and that makes it difficult to build phases. We need to work at this, as it’s only going to get more important as the year goes on. We need to be far more physical in the contact area, as I also believe we're going to ground far to easily allowing the opposition to get in early. We need to fight to stay on our feet those few steps longer and wait for the support to get to us. The same in defence, we’re chasing the ball far too much, we need to set the defence across the pitch rather then flood the ruck when we’ve already lost the ball. Two guards either side, and then spread across the pitch.

But all in all this was a good win. We dogged it out as a team and came out on top, and the most impressive thing was how we took control of the game in the second half when it could so easily have swung the other way, playing the right way never let them build any momentum. I think we can be pleased with this win, but we need to knuckle down a bit and work on the points mentioned so we can improve.

So training on Tuesday, but more importantly training at Domont on Thursday where we can break it all down and use the knowledge of Jamie to make sure we blow the opposition away next week. It’s no coincidence that our best games have been off the back of good technical rucking training session with Jamie, and when we combine that with the phase work we’ve been doing we look a classy side. We had it for moments yesterday but not for the whole game.

We have a big game this coming week, Paris Universities who are mid table with us. Let’s make a statement and train hard so our performance lays down a marker before the rest weekend.

Well done,

Graeme

Photos of the game are avialable at

http://www.kodakgallery.fr/ShareLanding.action?c=wpbxisl.gwlx0igh&x=0&y=1ysoph&localeid=fr_FR