Bective 17 - Stillorgan RFC 27
J3 League - Jan 14, 2007
Well for once we were not playing on a mudbath as we got to experience the Donnybrook front pitch in good conditions with a big breeze across the Pitch. We decided to play against the wind in the first half playing to the Wesley end. We started really well with the forwards going in hard taking the ball up well. Our first try came from good work by the forwards up the right, ball got played out to Finn who broke a tackle who offloaded to Mark to did a lovely offload to Garrett to score in the corner. They came back at us, we got a couple of penalties which Garrett kicked poorly missing touch. They continued to attack us with their Number 8 (their best player) causing us alot of problems. We scored from very good defense in midfield with Finn hitting his man and taking the ball. He had 50ms to go at one stage it looked like he would give up but made it into the corner.
We continued to pile the pressure on with a number of lineouts close to their line. The forwards were mauling excellently best I have seen in a long time. From one of the lineouts 10ms out the forwards had a great maul to score in the corner - sorry not sure who got the final touchdown. We missed the conversion but were comfortably ahead 15-0.
We then went to sleep, their number 8 and scrumhalf were getting more prominent and people were missing first up tackles around the fringes. Again discipline was lost up front, Ref said before the game he would talk to you if you were over the top. I could hear him from 2nd centre so why people a foot away could not hear him and LEAVE THE BALL ALONE is a mystery!!!!!!!! From one of these penalties they scored a penalty straight in front of the posts. Players were walking around and one of their backs ran through a couple of forwards and nearly scored. From the resultant ruck near the line their Number 8 went in. Try was converted to leave the score at 15-10.
Second half we wanted to up the intensity and there was a couple of changes so we could have a look at players. They looked like they wanted it more in the first 20 mins. We were giving away Penalties at a steady rate and they were punishing us. There was some immense Tackling from Charles in particular close to the line. They could not get through and their outhalf did a lovely crossfield kick to the corner where their winger beat Liam to the ball to score. They converted a very difficult conversion to go 17-15 ahead with 20 mins to go. They then nearly scored when they got the ball out to their very fast fullback who looked like he was going to score only for a brillant try saving Tackle from Marcin. There was nothing between the 2 teams at this stage.
This seemed to finally give us the kick up the arse we needed. We started to play a bit better, they tried to attack us and the backs read their move they dropped the ball, garrett hacked on and thankfully it bounced into his hands, he outsprinted the cover just to score in the corner to bring the scoreline to 20-17. We then tried to use the wind better and pin them in the corner. Bective were getting desperate now trying to run the ball, Garrett intercepted in the midfield to score his hat trick under the posts with one min to go this was converted.
POSITIVES:
first 15mins and last 15 mins.
Mauling was very good when we won good ball Backline defence very good forced them into errors that led to 3 tries.
Back 3 including Hops when he came on communicated much better this week
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT:
Discipline - again we gave away too many penalties, every time we put pressure on we gave away a stupid Penalty was Double what we gave away last week!! Individual players need to take responsibility for Penalties that they are giving away.
We have alot of Quality second rows and back row that it is making Selection very difficult. If there is little between players the player who is the more Disciplined will be selected first. Any players continously giving away Penalties will be Taken OFF.
Kickoffs- we dropped a few kickoffs and maybe it is something we can practise under pressure this week.
Place kicking- we are not converting out points and relying on tries when we come across better teams this could cost us. This is something we don't practise so we are going to spend a good bit of time on it this week. If there is anyone who can place kick no matter what position let us know. It is not fair on Mark as he is the only one who can strike a ball.
Overall- good win 5 tries and bonus point. We are playing much better rugby with the Backs now getting alot more ball to show what they can do. There are only a couple of matches left in the League so we need everyone Down Tuesday and Thursday!!
Match report by Garrett Fanning