Sorry this is a bit late. It’s not because we lost. Honest! First defeat of the season which means we are now second on points difference in the league standing. A disappointing performance against a hard working opposition who would have been well clear if their Fly Half hadn’t had a shocker with the boot [...]
Sorry this is a bit late. It’s not because we lost. Honest!
According to the BM 'The socks are a disgrace but credit goes to Donal who brought a case to training yesterday as he knew this was coming'
First defeat of the season which means we are now second on points difference in the league standing. A disappointing performance against a hard working opposition who would have been well clear if their Fly Half hadn’t had a shocker with the boot missing 6 attempts at goal!
Alzheimer’s is definitely setting into the BM. Not because the wife found me wandering the streets in my underwear on Saturday night, that was because I had returned from an excellent TRFC Halloween Party (well done Entertainments Committee) but because I simply cannot remember the Gades first try. They scored early, within the first 10 minutes but missed the conversion. Teachers then had a fair amount of possession for the remainder of the half but Gades scrum half was making life difficult at the back of our scrum and once again TRFC were guilty of not putting any sort of phases together. Our scrums were good, our lineouts were bad and our play at the breakdown was downright awful!
Players weren’t posting the ball, we weren’t cleaning out rucks and this all against a team with players who are very good (legally or illegally) at slowing down opposition ball. It was pretty poor stuff considering we practice it all week. In between penalty misses from Gades, Nails missed a penalty but then we did get some good fortune for our first try.
Jack chased his own long kick down field. Gades scrum half, Healy, stepped out of Jack’s tackle and then tried to go round young Patrick but just as Healy went to flick a pass back inside our young winger nailed him and the pass looped back to where Jack was lying on the floor. Jack, somewhat surprised by his good luck, turned and set off for the try line, the cover defense got to him but he off loaded to Andre who skipped past a final defender to score under the posts. Nails landed the conversion and we were 7-5 up. By the half we were down though as the Gades fly half, who had had plenty of practice, finally slotted a penalty. 7-8 down.
Our Captain’s frustration with our performance was evident by the not too diplomatic half-time address to the team. The message was clear, we had started flat, played poorly and were deservedly behind.
A couple of changes were made and Harry brought a stability to proceedings despite butchering the first overlap of the 2nd half (had to put that in, I don’t want LHA thinking he is valuable to the team) and Porter raised the tempo of our game. We definitely played better in the second half and the ball was beginning to find our dangerous runners out wide with Andre getting a sniff of the line on a few occasions but last gasp defense managing to haul him in each time. Despite our improved performance we were still guilty of handing penalties to the Gades but fortunately their Fly Half continued to miss.
With about 20 minutes left on the clock Nails and Scotty spotted a mismatch in midfield and Nails ‘raced’ through a gap to score untouched under the posts which he also converted. 14-8 up. Things were looking rosy. Dave Porter then missed a chance to possibly finish the game as contest when his penalty kick hit the post and this felt worse when Gades slotted a penalty of their own to close the gap 14-11.
Porter was again involved in the next incident, he went to take a quick penalty in heavy traffic and national team captain Dunks, couldn’t resist the temptation to trip him. The BM could see the red mist descend on our favourite Poison Dwarf before he had even hit the floor and his mood was not helped by Gades flanker Connor flopping on top of him. Needless to say Porter’s head almost exploded in indignation much to everybody’s amusement. The Ref did spot it though and Dunks saw yellow.
At this point Teachers should have closed out the game but this time it was Gades who enjoyed some good fortune. After a couple of phases Scotty attacked down the right and with his winger in support he made it deep into the 22 but he then lost the ball in contact. Gades hacked the ball downfield and with Jack up in the line expecting to attack there was no one at home and the race was on. In fairness to Jack he did win the race but what happened next was calamitous and will probably haunt him for a while. As he went to collect the bobbling ball it bounced between his legs and despite his desperate dive the on rushing Renegade Full Back managed to get a toe to it before him, again hacking it through before conveniently bouncing up perfectly for him to dive over for the clinching try in the final minutes. They missed the kick again but no matter, we ran out of time and have now experienced out first league defeat of the season.
Not the most fun filled report of the year. Here is a picture of our vice-captain Donal. The socks are a disgrace but credit goes to Donal who brought a case to training yesterday as he knew this was coming.
We break now for the Classic but return to league action against the Police in a couple of weeks so training will continue.
See you there.
BM