A surprisingly warm and sunny day in mid-February (18 degrees!!!), and the pitch was fast.
A half term fixture is always going to struggle with numbers, and so it was for both teams, with both teams missing some key players. We started with 12 a- side and six man scrums, and later in the game removed another back as one of the RP players got injured. We started with a full pitch but decreased the width after a while to make the game a little more competitive.
It seemed to take RP a while to wake up and a lot of tries were run in in the first half, breaking tackles and passing out wide. In the second half RP did make us work a lot harder for points with some excellent scramble defence and tackles.
The scoreline is large, so it's important to reflect on the things we did right.
As always, it's also important to focus on what we need to improve
Special mention to the kicking tee boy (Jack Mc) and water boy (Max M-C), pictured above assessing the play and in ready mode, who were excellent on the day and really 'on the ball' running on the pitch when needed. Great team support from the u11s, really appreciated!!!
There was a lot of good play from everyone on the team today, so selecting Player of the Match came down to who were the best team players that helped the team succeed. Alex K, on his first run out at scrum-half found his voice, well done, and Stan B was excellent in the contact area. Both deserve the award.
This game was a really helpful run-out for some core players and showed the coaching team that we have options to move people around. The next game, in a week against Verulamians, is expected to be a lot more challenging game of 15-a-side rugby. We will need to play a lot better and improve on the areas above.