Gregor made some crunching tackles

Boys, it’s getting difficult for the BM to write these reports, it’s not that I am bad loser (though I certainly don’t enjoy it) it’s just that I am not very impressed with the rugby we are playing. When the BM is making comments from the pitch the criticism is a tongue-in-cheek piss-take but when I’m on the sidelines it’s hard not to make the criticism sound like…..well like….plain old criticism.

Literally for only 10 minutes in the entire game were we the better team, 5 minutes either side of half time. For the rest of the time we were well beaten by an average Renegade team, was I disappointed? Very much so. Was I surprised? Not exactly, attendance at training has been poor and it was obvious that the XV we put out had never played together even on the training park. We played with commitment but had no shape to our game, our first phase was ok at best and our second phase was non-existent, add to the mix that our young Backs left their hands at home and you start to get the picture.

With 35 minutes on the clock we were 14-0 down, I only remember one try for Gades which came from Puppy being robbed in a maul that also involved two more of our Backs (probably the reason it got turned over!). From the turnover the Gades ran 60 yards and executed their 7 on 2 overlap with admirable ease! We did at least finish the half well, the forwards simply kept it to themselves and made inroads but at the vital moment when a score looked likely a handling mistake was made and Gades cleared their lines.

Great catch by the Vice Captain

The 2nd half started fantastically, Puppy went blind with the kick off taking the Gades by surprise, Andre clattered the receiver, Bodyie picked up and then fed Andre who went over for the try. Despite Puppy’s poor hands he did at least remember to bring his kicking boots as he followed the difficult conversion with a difficult penalty and all of sudden we were within 4 points and Renegades had hardly touched the ball 5 mins into the half.

After that however it became a pretty scrappy affair, neither team really laid a platform to play off but Gades took their chances. Poor defense off a lineout saw their inside centre slice through to feed his winger for a score, their fly half landed a couple of drop goals and a penalty then poor defense on their part saw Bobby go over off a quick penalty but by then it was all too late for the boys in Red.

Of note were a couple of open field tackles by Henry and Donal and it was good to see the freight train that is Greg Fraser take out months of injury frustration by running over the smallest Renegade he could find on a number of occasions. Other than that there was little joy for the BM to comment on, no beer this week, we simply don’t deserve it.

BM