Millmount House 13 - 10 Stillorgan
J4 League - Oct 11th, 2008
Saturday was a good and a [very] bad day. It was good in that somewhere around 40 blokes got to play for the J4 and the J4B teams. Barnhall and Railway Union sent proper teams down and the J4B\'s therefore lost both their [40 minute] games. But the fact that everyone who wanted to play for Stillorgan this weekend got a decent crack at a game is brilliant.
The J4\'s were playing what should have been a very winnable game against Millmount House. Things started badly, right from the off. We were asked to be on the pitch to warm up at 2pm. I was late, arriving just after 2pm, but was around the 7th or 8th person there. All during the warm-up things were quiet and flat as a pancake. It was also clear from very early on that we had a lot of changes from the team which had been announced on Thursday night. This translates to the fact that we had blokes playing out of position all over the park.
It was a scrappy game with a lot of penalties given against both teams. Things started pretty well, with us putting them under a lot of pressure. Alas, in what became a pattern for the first half we came close on a number of occasions, but things managed to go wrong for one reason or another. All we had for the first 20 minutes camped inside their 22 was a penalty kicked by Gareth Fanning. But alas Gareth had to leave the field injured very soon afterwards.
As the half wore on we kept putting them under pressure, but for no reward. With about 10 minutes to go their full back sliced a clearance kick from inside their 22. It looked for a second that we would gather and go in for a score, unopposed. Only a single man, who was now offside stood in the way. But that offside Millmount player made a tackle, which stopped us. It was a professional foul, which stopped a certain try. He was yellow carded but I wonder what if...
So we now had a permanent overlap for the last 10 minutes of the first half, as they were down to 6 backs. But our wingers never saw the ball in that 10 minutes. We went on a feast of pig ball, and crash balls up the centre. In hindsight we should have just done quick hands across the backline from sideline to sideline. With time almost out on the first half we received a series of penalties right beside the line, which the forwards ran, and on the final one, we actually managed to get the ball beyond the forwards to the backline. Colm O\'Driscoll\'s [Eoin\'s brother] got the ball over the line, right beside the posts. We converted, and it was 10-0 right at half time.
Half time was a case of buts, if\'s and what if\'s. But we were determined to make a go of it in the second half, get a couple of early scores and kill the game off. We almost managed to do that, right at the start of the half, with some clever back play putting us right in the corner. We ran a catch and drive from a lineout, which worked brilliantly. We got over the line quite quickly, and from there I really am not sure what happened. From where I was it looked like we were over the line, falling and therefore it was try time. But it looked like we tried to pass the ball, when over the line and about to score, and the receiver dropped it. It was the talk of the pub later on, as we tried to figure out what the hell had happened!
That was the last time we came close to scoring anything unfortunately. They made some changes at this point, and brought on some backs who could handle and pass, and it changed the game totally. We spent the rest of the game on the back foot. They were at, or over the line a number of times. They had one solid gold try disallowed when Ross Durnin got his hands under the ball before the ref got down to look at it. All they had for 30 odd minutes of pressure was a single penalty. So going into the last 10 or so minutes the score was 10-3 to us.
So now with 8 or 9 minutes to go, their constant pressure finally told, and they got a score in the corner, which they failed to convert. The score was now 10-8 to Stillorgan with the time ticking away.
We managed to put them under pressure from the kick off, but gave away our 355235th penalty for going off our feet at a ruck and gave them a chance. Their kick from the penalty was loose, we gathered and kicked it back at them, but alas our kick was even worse. Their winger ran it back from 70 odd meters, 4 Stillorgan players missed tackles, and he scored under the posts. They missed the conversion, making the score 13-10 to Millmount.
There was maybe a minute left, enough time for us to get into their half for the first time in 15 minutes, look promising, get the ball through hands and then give away a penalty for going off our feet again. They kicked it to touch and that was basically that.
Without being overly dramatic, the reasons for defeat are several IMHO:
a) First is that something appears to have gotten into all of us, from 1 to 20, that we try and tackle people high. In the last 20 minutes of the game their sideline was going mental, as we had made 4 or 5 high tackles, which the ref missed/ignored. For their actual winning score, he broke 4 tackles at my count, and 3 of them we tried to tackle him high and he just sauntered through them. I don\'t know where its come from, but we need to sort it out if we are to do anything this season. The place to sort that out is down training on a Tuesday and indeed Thursday against the J3\'s.
b) The theme for the forwards this season so far has been penalties at ruck and maul time. We go off our feet, we come in from the side, we handle the ball on the ground, we pull guys over. We basically have looked up the rule book and commit every offence possible. We do it on Thursdays against the J3\'s and we have done it during every game. I\'m as big an offender as anyone, but it really has to stop. We kept them in the game many times yesterday, and spoiled chances of our own more than once. It may be a case where Shane just has to drop people who keep giving away penalties, its that serious IMHO.
c) Things were also not helped at all that I think Bryn has played 4 games at scrum half for us now, and has played with 4 totally different out halves and [at least] 3 different number 8\'s. We need to establish some kind of continuity if we are to reach our potential. We need everyone who wants to play on Saturdays down at training. There is little or no use running forward and back moves for 2 hours on Thursday night with a totally different line-up than which takes the field on Saturday. Lads really need to make an effort to get down training.
Match report by Joe O´Reilly