Valley Commandos

It’s always a pleasure to welcome Gordano, and on this occasion it was to create a round robin with Weston at a sunny and remarkably dry School pitch in Swiss Valley. They are a well organised team with similar values and strengths to ourselves, however due to the recent poor weather have struggled to get any game time hence the last minute fixture with us. As expected this proved to be another tight affair.

Similar to the first game against Weston we seemed to refuse to pass to players in better positions. Instead we opted to hold on to the ball and got bogged down in a close quarter’s battle. Thus this became a very stop start game which we edged due to a couple of breakaway scores. Rich is beginning to show form from previous years with some good penetrating runs from deep, one of which ended in another nice notch. The other try being awarded to Big Mac, eventually being rewarded for his continual battering advancements. I can’t help but feel this game was waiting for a star to step forward and take it by the scruff of the neck, a spark to ignite it. Unfortunately no one seemed to fancy the lead role and we were left with a group of reasonable supporting actors.

I felt as if we coasted rather than pushed the boundaries of improvement. Maybe a little harsh as we did make small steps forward in the tight with support body positions visibly better than in previous outings. But the big positive of the game, was our solid defence again. We had to defend for large drawn out parts of this game and yet still managed to keep a clean sheet across the whole day in fact. It’s great to see everyone contributing on this front, well done boys it really makes a huge difference.

So next week we look forward to welcoming the mighty Taunton for one of the toughest fixtures in the calendar. We will need to up our defence another notch to keep them at bay, and will definitely have to play an unselfish “team” game if we are to compete. Such games are what we mark ourselves against.