Continued rain meant that the pitches were out of bounds. Our match was moved to the Astro. Our first ever full sized game on the 4G playing surface, no posts so no conversions today. 2 X 25mins here's how it played out.
First half:
Kettering kick off , nothing between the sides for the first five minutes. A couple of scrums & we do look a bit high, something to work on there. LB strong in the scrum but we do make a break & Oran from the half way line with a couple of hand offs along the way scores. LB on the attack , they win a penalty on our 5m, they walk through our defence & score. Ben kicks off & the ball bounces into touch at 10m, KFRC pressure LB & force them to touch down on their try line. Scrum 5m & Charlie (Captain ) off the back of the scrum to score. A well worked piece of play. We are under pressure on our 5m, we hold up their ball carrier & win a scrum, ball out through a couple of backs to Freddie, he marks a snake hips run through LB to score, good support with him though. The cracks are starting to show now, LB are pressuring, we are making some poor errors, bad decision making & a total lack of communication. LB make the most of it to score. End of the first half.
Second Half:
LB kick off, they intercept our pass & go over to score. We seem to have lost all idea of how of play as team now, no cohesion . LB make the most of it & their centre wanders through our defence to score. LB on the attack again. We've gone into " I can fix this on my own" mode & it isn't working for us. We do make a break & Freddie goes over for a try. We kick off & LB's 10 catches the ball, runs past everyone on the pitch to score. This is as poor & as i've seen us this season. Kettering are at last starting to talk to each other to work out how to fix this. We win a scum on their 5m line. Charlie off the back of the scrum to score. The boys have their heads up now & look hungry again. We pressure LB in their own half & force the knock on. The boys win the scrum, Charlie tries to crash over but is short, we win the ruck & get the ball through hands ( at last) to Joe who forces his way over to score. Some phases of play at last & good team work! We are now under an immense amount of pressure on our own line now, Joe does well to wrestle the ball out of LB's hands & touches down over our try line, scrum 5m. We manage to get the ball back & kick into touch & thats time here at Waverley Road.
We got there in the end but the manner in which we did it was very disappointing. The pitch & conditions were perfect for the type of running & offloading rugby that we want to play. I think the boys thought the match was won before they started which is very dangerous & shows little respect to Long Buckby who were a very capable side. We gave away countless penalties for mainly for being offside. We rarely saw a tackle below the waist. We hardly competed at the break down & the lack of communication & team work was hugely disappointing. Yes we got the win but the manner in which it was achieved is not something to be proud of. If I had a point for every time i've mentioned communication at training & pre game warm ups i'd be top of the premiership. I maybe need to work on my communication skills to get this point across.
On the positive side I thought Charlie made a good captain & his communication was very clear. Bryce had a good game & Raoul got under his opposition prop in the scrum. Joe was excellent in the second row, it looked like he'd been at the Shea Gilder second row academy. Max, Sam & Clarke worked hard today. Tom Herbert made his debut. As coaches we want the boys to be the best team that they can be. We know they can be better than this & we will be working with them to help them to achieve their best.
Tries: Oran 1, Charlie 2, Freddie 2 & Joe 1