Hot trip to the Far East

An early start and an unusually long drive to the “Far East” through fog saw only the brave arrive blurry eyed at the new surroundings of Avonvale RFC. 14 young challengers arrived in dribs and drabs and slowly we all got into the swing of things. Come kick off, the cobwebs had well and truly been blown away and the morning fog gave way to lovely bright running rugby conditions.

We knew very little of our opposition but it didn’t take long to recognise they were a good little unit who were very capable of running the ball through the three quarters given chance. However our Brutish pack of overfed forwards were in no mood to give them that opportunity, thoroughly dominating all things “set piece”. Unfortunately this didn’t translate particularly well into the breakdown and although this game presented the perfect opportunity to sharpen our rucking skills we didn’t or wouldn’t, prefering the lazy and singular option. However as the early mistakes and “knock-on’s” were put behind us we grew into the game with our passing, offloading and decision making really stealing the show. At times I have to say we really were outstanding.

The Tornado played with a slight smile on his face (very slight) and topped the try scoring stats nicking no less than 4 trys!!! Rudsta continued his “Hot Streak” with a “bish, bash, bosh, hatrick” but more pleasing was his excellent offload to David to see him smash across the whitewash from close distance to grab his first ever try in the Blue and Gold. Maccauly was back in amongst it with a nice little score, reading a pass and intercepting deep in our half before sprinting through to finish off a stylish play. Big Mac saved himself for the last quarter before grabbing a brace and celebrating in true Ashton Splash style! But Score of the day (not because it was particularly amazing, but because of its ruthless simplicity and unselfishness) went to Matt who dived across from the wing after a perfect blindside move. Hero of the day went to Oliver for his all round contribution but also particularly for his barnstorming run which ended with a 100% touchdown which the referee didn’t see fit to award, who aside from that it has to be said had an excellent day with the whistle. Never mind Olly, there’s always another game! MOTM went to Dan on his frustratingly long awaited return from injury. And although he and Wills bossed the game from 9 & 10 with consummate maturity it was his fearless and energetic tackling that really stood out which is even more commendable considering his recent lay off was down to a broken wrist!

And so not much to complain about you’d think. Wrong. I set 3 goals for Sunday morning, we managed 1 – a winger to score a try. I asked that our discipline be improved, unfortunately 1 or 2 are really spoiling things on this front, those concerned really need to grow up a bit and move on from this nasty little rut we seem to find ourselves in. I also asked for 3 consecutive phases of play – sadly we failed miserably at this (back to the drawing board for the coaches – we are excellent in training, but simply don’t then go out and do it on the park). A further moan is regarding our defence. There’s absolutely no doubt we boast some very, very, good tacklers. However it’s becoming evident that come the last ten mins we seem to stop!!! We let Keynsham back in late on when we were ahead. We allowed Welly to score 3 trys in the last 10 mins the week before. And this week we let Avonvale score 4 times in the second half as opposed to only once in the first half. Laziness, concentration or fitness – you decide, but it has to improve.

So some bad and plenty of good. As mentioned earlier, a nice unexpected bonus was our passing in attack. All those that made the journey would have very much been wooed with some of our free flowing passing attack……….it’s a real pleasure to at long last be able to write that! Thanks also to our hosts who made us very welcome and scored some excellent try’s themselves through some fantastic handling.

Well done all, big step forward.