CHELTENHAM NORTH

TRIES 0

CHELTENHAM NORTH

CONVERSIONS 0

CHELTENHAM NORTH

PENALTIES 0

OLD PATS COLTS

TRIES 8

Max SJ (3)
Ollie A
Sam S
Tristan
Isaac
Henry B

OLD PATS COLTS

CONVERSIONS 4

Sam P

OLD PATS COLTS

PENALTIES 0

Having played our last two games on rain-sodden pitches, we elected to give the Everest Road mud a miss today and rented the RFU’s plastic pitch at Tigers. Not everyone loves the 4G but at least we didn’t need a snorkel to play on it.

We are very lucky to have a large playing group and we were glad to welcome a couple of lads back from injury today too. This means we had the luxury of rotating our squad and giving playing time to boys who’d missed out recently plus resting a few who’d done some hard graft last time out.

We had 26 on the team sheet plus a vocal supporter group who didn’t make the squad today. It is constantly gratifying to see the lads show up to support. And, for a change, it wasn’t cold and wet!

North operate with a smaller squad than we are fortunate enough to call on, and that made a difference today. They played with commitment and as a cohesive team but we had fresh legs to bring on all over the pitch. However, beneficial as this was, we did become a little disjointed at times with the rearrangements.

The pitch was nice and dry but it was seriously windy again which made kicking somewhat random and the lineout a struggle for both teams. We had the breeze behind us first half and promptly put the kick off over the dead ball line. An early scrum demonstrated that we had the edge in the pack and we turned the ball over with a big shove. A penalty for hands in the ruck at the subsequent breakdown allowed Captain Ollie to tap and go feeding the rapid Max SJ who charged over near the posts. 7-0

From the kick off, Max fielded the ball, pinned his ears back through a couple of tackles and made the line for his second in as many minutes. Ollie caught the next kick off and did the same but went to the corner to score. The wind diverted both kicks wide but 17-0 was the lead after 15 minutes. Some words on the necessity of tackling were exchanged behind the posts and from that point onwards it was a more even contest.

An 8/9 move from a scrum in the 22 saw Charlie W cross the line but he was adjudged to have knocked on in the act of scoring. No try. However, from the scrum, we were awarded a free kick and Max, again in close support, was on hand to cross for his hat-trick. 24-0. We didn’t really have much alternative when it came to naming the man of the match!

From another scrum, first phase ball was shifted wide and winger Sam S cut back inside on nimble feet to get the backs onto the score sheet. Sam P had taken a couple of attempts to find his kicking range but slotted a nice conversion from wide out to give us a 31-0 lead at the half way point.

An injury to North’s loose head who’d been battling against Luke meant we had to go to uncontested scrums for the rest of the game. We used the interval to bring on some fresh legs and try out some new combinations.

Benji took the armband from his mate for the second half and straight away turned over the ball at a ruck. The ball seemed to follow him around for most of the half from that point onwards. This is partly due to his fitness- he has quite an engine and also due to his ability to read the game. His anticipation is exceptional for one still relatively early in his playing career and he’s just in the right place more often than not.

We dropped the intensity for a while after half time and North raised their game which put us under some pressure. However, our tackling was still pretty robust, lead by Conor who was doing a lot of hard graft and solid hits.

A kick out of defence was retrieved by Charlie L who ran it back hard. The pack hit it up for a few phases but were held out by the more vigorous defence and eventually the ball was moved through the hands to space out wide. A queue was forming of three-quarters hoping for a pass and Alex, unselfishly, drew the last defender to put Tristan in for the score.

Benji popped up in support of another backs move and carried deep into the North half. Some sweet off-loading out of the tackle gave Isaac room to escape and over he went. Perhaps he had too much faith in Sam’s kicking ability as he declined to run right round to the posts and the conversion was shanked wide. We were up by quite a margin by this point but still….41-0

Credit to North, they never buckled and continued to try and play good rugby until the end. Their tackling and general physicality improved throughout the game and they are plainly improving from when we played them earlier in the season.

A yellow card was shown to a North player for hands in the ruck which felt a little harsh just before the end of the game. From the penalty, a quick tap and some nice hands put Henry B into space and he crossed for the final try. The conversion was good and the game was over.

The match, particularly the second half was more closely contested than the final score suggests but, we just had a bit more pace, muscle and organisation at the crucial points.

For now we march on.

Allez les Pats!

Tom Perris