Failure is the road to Success

Clevedon Under 12’s took to the vale with a mixture of old, current and new faces, and our first home game of the season saw us come unstuck against a classy K’s outfit. A couple of returning footballers along with 2 from other commitments and 3 debutants gave the Clevedon line-up a worryingly unfamiliar look. However any fears that the soccer contingent had softened into pampered snood wearers was quickly put to bed as both Tyler and Rueben showed grit and determination well beyond expectation. Equally the three ‘newbies’ exceed all hopes by showing an intent and understanding that was more fitting of players with vastly more game time experience.
From the kick off Clevedon exploded out of the blocks to immediately find themselves 1 try up courtesy of the Maccualy Express. Sleepy Keynsham dusted themselves down realised they had a game on their hands and started to play. The early exchanges were pretty brutal and this theme continued throughout the rest of the morning, with both sides giving as good as they got. The overfed Clevedon pack were very dominant in the scrum but after a series of collapses and in the interests of safety there was no option but to go with uncontested scrums. Unfortunately this played very much into the hands of Keynsham giving them the advantage of consistent clean ball which their well drilled backs used to good effect. Despite this Clevedons defence was very much up to the task with some great tackling from all quarters, noteably Tyler Scotts try saving grapple when a score looked absolutely certain. As time wore on Keynsham got themselves level and followed with a nice move at the front of the lineout to nudge ahead, eventually scoring another late on to seal Clevedons fate after yet another conceded penalty. And so the clash of styles ended 3 trys to 1 to the visitors and all in all probably the right result on the day. Yes, things went Keynshams way but you can make your own luck in this sport. Their defence was resolute and their all out attacking rugby was exciting and admirable at times, whilst we unfortunately seemed to self destruct into a trail of infringements and sour faced arguing. When oh when will the penny drop. If you give away penalties, there’s a very good chance you will not win the game. Don’t get me wrong our style will see us successful against plenty of teams on the fixture list and I can’t fault the incredible determination, but when we come up against the more intelligent, quality sides such as Keynsham we need to be more accountable and aware of our individual actions. Therefore (1) STOP handing off, you just can’t do it, you’ve never been allowed to and it’s not changing any time, soon so get used to it. Hold the ball in TWO hands and run at the gap or pass to a mate in space. (2) Defend from an onside position. Once a referee has asked you to be onside, you do it, in fact you give it an extra yard behind the back foot to make sure you don’t give any further penalties away. (3) DO NOT QUESTION REFEREES. What on earth do you think you are going to achieve by it???? Unfortunately we’ve covered these particular areas before in great depth and in all honesty I’m growing a little tired of trying to deal with it. As you mature hopefully you will realise that the less penalties you give away the more successful you will be, the more ball you will have, the more fun for everybody. Not everyone is guilty. But those of you that are really need to change now because it’s not fair on the rest of the boys, you’re making it less enjoyable and ultimately you need to realise you’re not even giving us a chance of winning.

Sorry rant over. We can still take some fantastic positives from Sunday’s game. The determination was inspiring. We really started to ruck over ball in numbers at times. The backs showed some great intent, at last trying out a couple of moves and even trying to run out from our own goal line on a couple of occasions – brilliant, sexy, samba!!!!! Tommy ‘the guns’ Lee is really becoming a quality all rounder and deserved his man of the match accolade. David’s tackling was nothing short of superb. I loved Jared’s cheeky run from the back of the lineout, I think he was smiling all the way. Big Sam was everywhere, playing like it was his 200th appearance, not his 1st!!! Tyler Munn might be playing his way into the forwards, as his loose play was truly exemplary. I could go on and mention everyone, but all in all a good solid performance and definitely a step forward, especially since it was against one of the best in the county, especially since we had so many changes in personnel, especially since it was only really our second game of the season! Just imagine if we could have kept the scrums up and used it to our advantage. Just imagine if we had tried to play within the laws of the game instead of gifting them penalties all the time. Just imagine……

Nevermind, perfection is just a game away! Well done boys.