Stillorgan RFC 3 - Stillorgan RFC 52
J4 League - Dec 2, 2006
One could spend an afternoon picking through the reasons for our most recent performance, but the scoreline speaks for itself. Poor going forward, poor in defence.
Things started poorly, with CYM putting in a very quick try and then aonther, making the score 12 - 0 in minutes. A good drive up the hill from Stillorgan resulted in the only score for the Parish, a well kicked penalty by Niall. After this there was some toing and froing and another try by CYM. Half-time was 19 - 3 to CYM.
Home truths spun by Fidel, changes made and the hill in our favour should have made all the difference, but the simple fact remained that once CYM were able to get the ball out from rucks & mauls to their backs, we were almost helpless to stop them and it seemed like they could score tries for fun. Indeed the CYM fans who came along enjoyed it. The game finished 52 - 3. It's fair to say we never stopped trying, and the last 10 minutes were spent camping inside their 22, but no score resulted. Simply put, nothing we tried worked due to a combination of a well organised and unified CYM defence and our own handling errors. The curse of being held up in tackles continues to kill our momentum.
Lads, tackling doesn't hurt. Losing like this does. You will nod doubt have recieved instruction in tackling during the week. Tomorrow we will see if any lessons have been learned. Nobody minds losing, but everyone hates to lose by so much when we can see what's happening and do nothing about it.
Tomorrow let's keep our heads up, work as a team and keep each other focused on the task in hand. A good performance first, then we can think about the win.
Match report by Michael Kirwan