Well, we got a bonus point at least. And without wishing to take anything away from the opposition I think we all know we let ourselves down on that one.

To be fair to RC Vincennes they deserved the win, they took their only chance and while not an incredible side they did the right things. Their back three shut down our kicking options really well and their midfield defended the 10/12 channel really well. The opposition lineout for the first time this season beat ours, and their cover defence was exceptionally good. All in all they raised their game and dogged out a win without being exceptional.

We on the other hand having played all the rugby in the game lacked a bit of composure in the areas that mattered, we lost a lot of ball at crucial times in the wrong areas both at the breakdown and in contact, and as a result we frustrated ourselves.

Yes, there was a bit off the ball, but its silly stuff guys and we can’t afford to let ourselves get into it. It just distracts us and while we’re getting into all that we’re not playing rugby and we just lose focus – Aggression is good, but it’s got to be channelled and directed to where it’s needed, winning the contact and the breakdown. We know teams are going to do this, especially to our backs. There is always going to be late hits, and little digs and niggle off the ball, and lets be frank here; we’re playing Saturday afternoon Park Rugby not Pro Division, and the ref is not going to see everything and is going to make mistakes in the same way we do and in no way can we blame refs for us losing games or getting distracted with fighting and niggle. So we’ve just got to learn to live with it, put up with it, take the knocks and get up and tear into them again. We can’t get into fights and lose our focus, and if we are totally honest with ourselves we all know teams at this level chat, especially about the British, and we’ve just put a huge target on our backs for the rest of the season for how teams think they need to play against us if they want to win.

Past that what went right?

The stuff we’ve been working on worked really well. In the first 15-20 minutes the phases were getting built and the pod system worked exceptionally well, the 13 channel attack was good, just the last pass letting us down a few times. So while things didn’t go our way all in all there is absolutely no reason to panic or think we’re suddenly a bad team. We know the areas to work on and we’ll do it in training. The pack was excellent in the loose, breakdown was dominated by us, the Maul was phenomenal again and the backs played a lot of good attacking rugby in the first half, and did raise the tempo. Defence was good for the most part, heavy pitch made it a very tiring job to tackle and attack with pace but I don’t recall them coming close to scoring at any point.

Most of the guys were steady in their game today, but a few guys had good games; Fred as always was great in the loose and the carry, Ned was very good from Number 8 and carried the ball really well always going forward, Jon and Rick never allowed them selves to get dragged into it all and just concentrated on working hard. I thought Colum again played really well at 13, good covering defence and very unselfish in attack. Man of the match though, without question was Paul Baker. Carried well, worked hard off the ball, controlled the maul well when carrying, and didn’t get caught up in it all. He just took a few hits got up, laughed and jogged off to play on - great example to all of us.

So all in all yeah it’s a loss, and a disappointing one, but very much far from a disaster. I think we played 80% of the rugby, and at times very good rugby, and I can’t see a reason for us to be worried about any specific aspect of our game or look to make drastic changes to what we are doing. The league results went our way, with the teams we needed to lose losing and we maintain our position in the league, and I honestly believe this is the perfect wake up call for us as a team in why we should respect the game and how we play it.

Two weeks rest now, next game against A S Aeroport Roissy on the 5^th of December. We go away from this and put in the work on the training pitch, Tuesday’s session will be light but we’ll start building again after that.

Personally I think we’ve come a long way in three months, from a bunch of guys who didn’t even know each other we’ve gelled as a team and put in some really exceptional performances, from a coaching point of view it’s been great seeing the guys commitment and how hard they are willing to work on everything both on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Well done lads, lets keep trying to build on what we do, see you on Tuesday.

Graeme