Minor Blip Leads to Slip

A juicy encounter with two good established sides was anticipated at the vale. Unfortunately Avonmouth were struggling for numbers on this occasion and sadly had to postpone, leaving the mudbath to be enjoyed only by ourselves and Wellington.

In recent years we’ve not had much change out of our Southern Somerset friends, usually having a good solid contest but ultimately coming up a bit short come the final whistle. But as this latest challenge unfolded it seemed as though the wind of change was blowing and that the Clevedon boys would finally get their day. From the start the lads really, really, got stuck into the task. Scrums were excellent, distribution was pretty good and the breakdown was fairly tidy. This good start was swiftly rewarded by a rampaging Mac pirouetting across the line within minutes of the kick off. Wellington then shook the long journey out of their systems and a far more even contest unravelled. The second period saw Welly take the upper hand and if not for some outstanding defence they surly would have crossed. And so the game continued in this vein, with both sides producing some very competitive, quality periods of play but ultimately no one could break through. Into the 3rd session and things progressed much the same as previous, good play from both sides which at times resembled more of an intense war than a friendly Sunday game of rugby, which aside from some isolated silliness and a minor skirmish, was a credit to all involved. The highlight of the period was an excellent blindside break from the Tornado following a solid scrum. His pace saw him round the first defender, followed by a textbook draw and give to the supporting Woody (come to think of it, how on earth did he get there?!!) who deftly offloaded out of the tackle to Chas who stretched a mantis like arm out to finish in style……seriously good rugby, nobody would stop that amount of skill and intelligent rugby, absolutely nobody. With their lead doubled, sitting pretty on a 10-0 scoreline I get the feeling most of the boys were already dreaming of an afternoon by the fire snuggled up with their beloved ipad! As the old saying goes “It ain’t over till the fat lady….eats a hotdog”, and despite warnings from the coaching staff of an oncoming backlash, the game was about to take a turn. The following 10 couldn’t have gone much worse for the blue and gold. How much it was down to Wellington playing better or Clevedon falling asleep I’m not sure – probably a little of both. But that’s all it takes, games are decided on very small margins. Welly had a seriously good 10mins and we stopped tackling. The drive and determination that hallmarked the first half an hour disappeared, instead turning into arguments with each other and the referee. Surly more than ever this was the time to batten down the hatches and get together in a combined effort………unfortunately not. We took the easy option to blame other people, bad luck, bad refereeing……anything but ourselves. There’s a HUGE lesson to be learnt (and it is one we are actually slowly getting on top of). Our second try was pure class, an international team would have taken exactly the same options. It was a try that actually involved no less than 10 players, whom if any one of which had done something different we may not have scored. Defending is exactly the same. Wellington scored 3 very good and worthy trys, but any try is only conceded if the team haven’t defended as a whole. Their pushover try for instance (which was 100% a try by the way) I ran past 3 players who should have been at that maul pushing it back! They got over the line because their body positions were better than ours, if we spent more energy driving the team back than trying to get our hands under the ball we might have stopped that one, and just for the record, you cannot take quick KO’s especially when the ref is 30 meters away tending to one of your injured players on the try line!!!!

So a slightly sour end to a good day. Please focus on the performance rather than the result. There was some very good progressive play from a number of individuals. Woody grabbed MOTM for his all round awesomeness but mostly his desire to be front of the “boshing” line when facing the task of nullifying a charging tapped penalty. Most improved deservedly went to David who we have to remember has only been playing this game for a few months, it’s frightening to think where he may be if he carries on improving at this rate, already establishing himself as one of the best tacklers on the team. But high fives all round, we had a fantastic turnout and there really was some excellent phases of team play involving all.

And so wrapping up - the lessons are sadly similar to almost every game this season (although I have to admit we are getting better). We seem to get annoyed/upset/disrupted when we are penalised, this in turn leads to fragmentation of the team effort, and as witnessed on Sunday – usually success for the opposition. When, oh when, are we going to learn! Rugby is a wonderfully chaotic game harnessed by laws. Those laws are set in stone and need to be adhered to or you’ll be penalised – leading to loss of the ball, momentum and usually territory. So, STAY ONSIDE (please speak to me if you’re unsure). CARRY THE BALL IN TWO HANDS (preventing hand offs). TACKLE BELOW THE ARMPIT. NO HANDS IN THE RUCK (drive past and leave for the scrum half). DON’T ARGUE WITH OFFICIALS (it seriously damages your chances of decisions going your way). 5 simple lessons for everyone to learn and master and our game will become truly outstanding…….trust me, try it, you might even like it !!!!!

This Sunday needs some extra commitment as we embark on our longest trip away for the season to fixture newbies Avonvale RFC, and I have no doubt we have taken on board all outlined above and provide a faultless display for the travelling die hard!