Crawley u16 20 vs. Midhurst u16 13
This was the first game of the season for me, after a summer plagued with injuries. The game took place on the C first team pitch, so no worries about the energy sapping 2nd & 3rd team clay pitches. The grass was also very long, which proved to be a factor later on.
It was a good clean game, for the most part. It wasn’t as close as the score suggested, C had the run of the game virtually the whole time, and it was two individual plays which got the tries for M. M scored one from their excellent scrum half absolutely on the line, and their second came right at the death when the M player was held up, but because of the long grass (4-6 inches tall in most places) meant that he still managed to get the ball down.
Scrummaging was good, a couple of resets for early engagement (both sides), a couple of free kicks for feeding and foot up (C) and an LH who didn’t like to bind (also C). Packs were quite even, and no real messing about, which was good. The ball handling was very good today, so there were very few scrums.
Rucks and mauls were also pretty good, the mauling especially was very well fought, though I had to penalise a Crawley prop for blatantly sealing the ball off as the first player in. The Crawley manager said he doesn’t coach that at all, so I guess he’s been watching too much GP. No boots on bodies that I saw, though I did have to clarify to one captain at the briefings that giving a player on the ground “a good shoeing” (his words) was not an option…
Back play was inventive, though the M IC was a bit too satisfied with his own skill, did a fancy move, and then stood there admiring himself while his poor OC and Wing got slaughtered! M had a lot of this – one player runners who then got isolated and turned over. C attacked much more as a team, and this approach really paid off. It was only some good last ditch tackling by M saved it from being a bigger scoreline.
One yellow card in the match. The C prop who had already had a warning about his binding (or lack thereof) in the scrum, blatantly came in from the side in a maul deliberately hitting a retreating M player in the back and binding him back into the maul. He did this at speed, and I felt it was dangerous, so he had to take 10 mins.
My game
Very poor. Even though both coaches said I had a good game, I was off colour, and could feel it from the off. I was just rusty, my positioning was poor, my communication was non existent, and only the good behaviour of the players stopped this from being a total farce. Way too fat & unfit and luckily I don’t have a game next weekend, as I need 2 weeks at least down the gym to be ready for my next game. One to learn from, get some more motivation to get my butt down the gym!
This was the first game of the season for me, after a summer plagued with injuries. The game took place on the C first team pitch, so no worries about the energy sapping 2nd & 3rd team clay pitches. The grass was also very long, which proved to be a factor later on.
It was a good clean game, for the most part. It wasn’t as close as the score suggested, C had the run of the game virtually the whole time, and it was two individual plays which got the tries for M. M scored one from their excellent scrum half absolutely on the line, and their second came right at the death when the M player was held up, but because of the long grass (4-6 inches tall in most places) meant that he still managed to get the ball down.
Scrummaging was good, a couple of resets for early engagement (both sides), a couple of free kicks for feeding and foot up (C) and an LH who didn’t like to bind (also C). Packs were quite even, and no real messing about, which was good. The ball handling was very good today, so there were very few scrums.
Rucks and mauls were also pretty good, the mauling especially was very well fought, though I had to penalise a Crawley prop for blatantly sealing the ball off as the first player in. The Crawley manager said he doesn’t coach that at all, so I guess he’s been watching too much GP. No boots on bodies that I saw, though I did have to clarify to one captain at the briefings that giving a player on the ground “a good shoeing” (his words) was not an option…
Back play was inventive, though the M IC was a bit too satisfied with his own skill, did a fancy move, and then stood there admiring himself while his poor OC and Wing got slaughtered! M had a lot of this – one player runners who then got isolated and turned over. C attacked much more as a team, and this approach really paid off. It was only some good last ditch tackling by M saved it from being a bigger scoreline.
One yellow card in the match. The C prop who had already had a warning about his binding (or lack thereof) in the scrum, blatantly came in from the side in a maul deliberately hitting a retreating M player in the back and binding him back into the maul. He did this at speed, and I felt it was dangerous, so he had to take 10 mins.
My game
Very poor. Even though both coaches said I had a good game, I was off colour, and could feel it from the off. I was just rusty, my positioning was poor, my communication was non existent, and only the good behaviour of the players stopped this from being a total farce. Way too fat & unfit and luckily I don’t have a game next weekend, as I need 2 weeks at least down the gym to be ready for my next game. One to learn from, get some more motivation to get my butt down the gym!
