Over Hill, Over Dale

An hour travelling east “Over Hill, Over Dale”……… not Midsummer Night’s Dream as me old mate Billy S once wrote, but Midsomer Norton RFC and a coveted place in the last eight of the Bristol Combination Cup at stake.

Having never had the pleasure of playing these guys previously we made the journey across Somerset armed only with rumour and hearsay. We knew they were decent. We’d been reliably informed they were “Big” and “Aggressive” and so the usual assumptions were swiftly made – Big direct pack, who probably don’t move the ball much, are possibly slow to the breakdown and may be weak out wide……..All of which proved to be a total load of rubbish !!! As it happens MSN RFC proved to be pretty respectable in all departments, in fact I’d go as far to say they were actually fairly similar to ourselves – which is possibly more of a complement to us than them I suspect.

Well it turned out to be something of a scrappy affair, with both sides forcing plenty of errors and basically cancelling each other out. But come the final whistle it was MSN’s far superior motivation at the breakdown that provided them with the possession required to tilt the scoreboard in their favour. It’s not that we were slow to the breakdown, quite often the first man on the scene was in a Blue and Gold shirt stealing, stalling and securing in fine fashion, no, unfortunately it was the next part that we failed miserably at………..back-up………where’s the back-up? The “Zombie Boys” (as they will now fondly be branded as) can easily be identified, usually hanging around the breakdown, vacant expression, watching others graft and lay their bodies on the line whilst they slowly lean on bolt upright and try their best to get in the way of anyone clever enough or brave enough to make a decision! It really is one thing not to contribute in competing for the ball, it’s quite another to hinder progression by lifelessly standing in the way. I very much appreciate breakdowns can be incredibly complex with a huge amount of different options available which is probably why we get the “zombie stall”. Please let me make this clear forevermore - The most important bit when approaching a breakdown is to just MAKE A DECISION, make it early, and wrong or right go through with it – it’s the only way to learn. If you’re ever unsure make it simple for yourself…..In attack, dynamically drive over the ball to ensure we secure it. If the ball is lost get into the defensive line ready to press. If you quickly make one of these decisions I’ll be a very happy coach and the teams game and your personal performance will increase hugely.

I bang on about teamwork quite a lot, and how important every single man is, well this is a really good example of this: The one try we scored came down to a number of factors. Yes Dan spotted a great gap, yes he was clever enough to quickly take advantage, yes he used fantastic speed and determination to get around the cover and then clever footwork to stall their excellent fullback putting him on his heels momentarily and giving himself enough space to get around the outside. Danny did all these things really, really, well, and he should rightly be praised for taking the opportunity so well. However without the previous breakdown – the opportunity wouldn’t have existed. After some decent hands up the slope Luke popped up in the middle, we’d drifted and the defence had it covered if we’re honest. Sensing lack of space outside him Luke put his head down and bulldozed back towards the posts. Good body position and leg drive saw him wrap up the interest of 4 opposition players!!!! Luke finished his job and presented the ball. On this occasion the ball was quickly and safely secured by McCauly and David which in turn led to Dan’s chance. We could of course go back even further to the lineout that was successfully performed to allow that passing up the hill. Or maybe even further to the kick for touch that led to the lineout etc. etc. I think you get the idea…….we can wax lyrical about how well Dan took his chance but crucially we have to understand and appreciate that without a number of successful phases and decisions by a large number of other players that chance would never have evolved – That’s why pretty much every try is shared by a large proportion of the team and not just the man lucky enough to be at the end to put it down. So briefly back to the point - If the “Zombie Posse” made some decisions and secured more ball, who knows, maybe we’d have manufactured a few more opportunities.

And so our cup hopes came to an end at an unusually sunny Midsomer Norton. We were out scored 3 tries to 1. I’ve discussed our try, but theirs were very well taken off the back of our mistakes and some smidges of bad luck – mistakes are just that, I genuinely don’t care about mistakes we need mistakes to learn and improve. So despite starting well for a change we conceded in the first couple of minutes and despite trying our very best to mount a comeback they scored in the last two minutes. Apart from this three quarters of an hour of rugby was equal and really could have gone either way – although I have to concede that due to the breakdown dominance MSN rightly deserved the result.

We aren’t a “results” team and we are very much a work in progress – We targeted two things at the start of the day. Start well and tackle well. You guys excelled in both these departments, so well done and thank you. I was also really pleased with how the team adjusted to losing Willsy at scrum half early in the game, without replacements we shuffled around, stuck to the task and organised well. Particularly Finn who’s had a quiet time of it recently but was more than noticeable in his workrate and contribution, especially for a winger stepping up to the flank!!!!

Just keep progressing, each game, little by little, make mistakes and learn.