Sun 29 Sep 2019, 11:00
On a very wet and windy morning we arrived with a squad of 22 players all fit and ready for our 2nd fixture of the season and knew that Chesham also had a large squad ready for action.
The warm up and attitude of our players was first class with a real focus and willingness to work as hard in the warm up as they would eventually do in the game, games heads were well and truly on!
We flew out of the blocks and were 19 nil up within the first 15 minutes, we were quick to rucks, securing the ball and then making great decisions with the ball in hand, the first try scored by Billy with great speed and footwork, this set the pattern and Dan then scored 2 further tries, one with a superb dummy pass sending most of the Chesham side the wrong way down London Road! Getting an early lead should then make the game easy, unfortunately we were guilty of overplaying and a little bit of white line fever with Luke on the wing available for a try and Will on the inside of another player where both times a simple pass would have resulted in a try. The last 10 minutes Chesham camped in our 22 and the defensive side of our game was called into action and we stood up to them and kept the score at nil for half time.
19-0 at half time still a good lead and we then made 7 changes with all the replacements chomping at the bit, Tom Boardman then gave them a challenge for the 2nd half, we had to work as if we were losing 21-0 and see if we could overturn this – they did!
Change of personal but still the same shape, patterns of play and great line out work resulting in 2 tries for Henry, try for Ben and a final try for the rampaging prop Alfie. Overall Will secured 4 conversions (the last of these was outstanding) and Billy converted one as well. Credit to Chesham they kept going and we had to work really hard to keep the scoreboard ticking over and at no stage were we given easy tries.
I mentioned the wet and windy conditions and the lads did extremely well with minimal handling errors and great use of the kicking game, special mentions to Billy and Henry who controlled the backs and set up some superb moves with simple and effective rugby. Also, forwards were dominant and Will, Dan and Kye the stand out performers, but ultimately every single player back/forward/replacements did a superb job.
Of course areas to improve and develop but as a starting point this sets up the season very nicely, we gave them very simple pre-match messages and lads responded well to these, well played!!
Woodsy….
PS Lads work on your singing you killed some great Oasis songs!!
