Blues fall away after great first half performance

The Blues were given the slope and the aid of the stiff cross wind, and despite opening up a 20 points to 7 lead at the break could not hang on as ON's time and again pushed them back into their 22 and came away with points on almost every ocassion.

The Blues, for their part, showed considerable handling skills to trouble the ON's defence in the first half, but didn't take enough advantage of the conditions to open up what would have been a defendable lead. Had the referee not disallowed a try in the last minute of the first half, a 20 point lead may have been enough, but as it was 2 Alex Smit tries,one an interception and the other a fine counter attack from deep inside the Blues 22, both converted by Joe Daniel, who also kicked a penalty and drop goal were not enough, as ON's dominated long periods of the 2nd half.

Straight from the kick off at the start of the 2nd half, the Blues failed to deal with a simple take and from the ensuing scrum ON's were awarded a penalty, which they converted. Then almost immediately instead of clearing the ball the Blues tried to run out of defence, were penalised and the kick converted to immediately reduce the lead to one score. Worse was to follow as Josh Cox was sin-binned, much to his and his teams bemusement, and in that 10 minute period, ON's scored 23 points to turn the game around.

Despite their best efforts the Blues could not get back into the game and a further try secured the win and the bonus point for the home side.

This was a much improved performance by the Blues, and had they shown greater discipline to play in the right areas in the first half, and more composure in the 2nd, they could well have come away with something from this game. Positives, are clearly the excellent handling shown in the first half, and the performances of Alex Smit and a returning Josh Block, playing his first game for well over a year, whilst up front, Jamie Manley continues to improve at open side and Jack Williamson returned to the side to excel in the aerial battles.

RAJ Man of the Match: Alex Smit