BRFC 10 – France Pub 47

This is always a difficult time of year for the team, and certainly even up to Saturday morning we were unsure whether we could field a full team or whether we would need to field an incomplete team with an automatic 25-0 loss or even worse forfeit the game, loose three points and receive a hefty fine.

In the end, however, we managed to get a full team out, and special mention is deserved by Jeremy, who played his first full game for us in the front row, Yves who joined the ranks of the second row, and Dan who performed admirably at fly-half.

Unfortunately, our team warm up was limited to getting changed on the RER C and arriving at Versailles since we didn’t have enough cars at the pick up point (we will plan better in the future).

We faced a well organized and trained France Pub team on Saturday, and indeed much improved from the previous year. There is little to be said about the score, except that our opposition played to their strengths, setting up mauls with their forwards and running well with their backs.

Our efforts in the first half were rewarded only with a penalty and three points neatly claimed by Colum.

The second half however started well for us, and after recycling the ball several times and good ground work, Eudes smashed over the try line. It was good to see that our style of play, when correctly executed delivers results.

There were notable performances by a number of players: Jin, with good cover tackling and almost breaking the defensive line; Paul and Fred whose tackling kept the opposition at bay; Sam as the last line of defense; and the front row of Eudes, Jeremy and Toniol for holding their own.

Of course none of us were happy with the result, but we avoided being docked points, and demonstrated that when we put our game plan into action tries can be scored.

We need to look ahead now and concentrate on training and the games over the next few weeks.