1st XIII Match Reports
Spring Term 2017
(Coach: Stephen Bloom)
Wednesday 15th March 1st XIII v Haileybury [a] - drew 40-40
On what felt like the first day of spring, the 1st XIII made the trip into Hertfordshire to face Haileybury in our final match of the season. What followed was a pulsating and absorbing match where the two teams shared 16 tries as the 50 minutes ended with the score locked at 40-40.
A delayed departure and the scenic route into the stunning school grounds from our coach driver delayed the kick off until nearly 3.30pm. On the back of our outstanding win at Merchant Taylors’ a week ago, we started the match in blistering fashion with a contender for Try of the Season. One of our main principles is to play multiphase rugby and build territory gradually rather than score in one fell swoop. This was executed perfectly as a mighty eight-phase spell of possession resulted in Nabil Majumdar continuing his fine try-scoring form to storm over in the corner.
With Haileybury electing to kick from the restart, we soon found ourselves in possession again but poor handling which to a knock-on advantage and a couple of missed tackles allowed our hosts to swiftly restore parity. Haileybury’s first try was quickly followed by their second as their powerful and incredibly speedy winger charged down the left touchline to put his team into the lead. He proved to be the thorn in our side today as, for all the calls of tackling low and maintaining a high line of defence, there was little we could do at times in the face of such a mismatch. However, it was that aforementioned lack of line speed and tackling technique which allowed his third try inside the first ten minutes of the match.
If there is one attribute our team has this season, and they have several, it is guts and plucky resilience, and we scored the next four tries of the match to reassume the lead. Captain Archie Clarke spearheaded the comeback with a clinical finish after a well-timed pass from Oliver Slade. The irrepressible Alex Gabbitas then got in on the act as his opportunist interception enabled him to coast in under the posts (not that it mattered with conversions now lacking in U13 rugby!). Alex then put us in the lead as good early ball from a ruck caught the Haileybury backline underprepared. Nabil was the scorer of another excellent team try with another of our key principles, this time the mini ruck. Committing limited forwards to the breakdown, although with real urgency, worked a treat as Nabil found space on the wing which was only ever going to yield one outcome. Haileybury had the final say of the half as a dearth of low tackles saw us hold a narrow 25-20 lead at the interval.
Like its predecessor, the second half seemed to see both teams score with near enough every possession and it was Haileybury who drew first blood with a fourth try for their supremely talented winger. However, our supremely talented Alex restored our advantage with a mazy and jinking run of his own. The concession of a penalty, in good field position for them, and backing off the tackle quickly saw the score clawed back to 30-30.
A penalty of our own was ruthlessly finished off by the power of Archie. It seemed that he would be stopped a couple of times but, as he has done many times this season, our captain found that extra leg drive. With tries being scored on a ping-pong basis, I implored our captain to seize the initiative from the restart and how he responded. A deep kick was recovered by Haileybury but Archie’s terrific counter ruck saw us turnover possession and when the ball found its way to Alex he was soon to charge his way over the line for his fourth score of the afternoon.
However, seeing that an adversary had matched his try tally, the Haileybury winger, terrorising our left flank in the second half, scored two late tries to haul his team level once more. Weary legs and bruised bodies feared the inevitable as the ball made its way out to him and, with ball in hand, the outcome was simply unavoidable. With one player already off the pitch and two more stricken on the turf, play was called to a halt after an action-packed match.
In terms of a Man-of-the-Match, it was our three senior players who really shone today. Before moving on to them, special mention must go to Alex Gong, a Year 7 making his 1st team debut, who carried the ball with authority and put in some hard tackles; he will be a pivotal player in the team of 2018. But back to those three… Captain Archie Clarke was always in the thick of the action both in attack and defence, what a talismanic captain he has proved to be; Alex Gabbitas claimed half of our points and took his season’s tally to a round century (and it could have been more but for his utterly selfless play at times); and Nicholas Adhami, the one player who could consistently tackle Haileybury’s six-try ‘Galactico’, rarely has there been a better 1st team tackler in my 11 years at the helm.
And so, another enjoyable season comes to a close. Prep school rugby can often have a one-sided look about it but the contests, especially the past three weeks, have produced close scorelines and competitive matches which must always be the underlying aim. With the change in rules from the RFU, there seems to have been more points scored than ever as, despite conversions disappearing (except at the 7s), restarts have been quicker with no lineouts and more space on the pitches with 15-a-side rugby making way for a 12/13-a-side format. In a term always beset by unavailability for a number of reasons, 20 boys represented the team and fought hard in the red and black of Orley Farm; well done to them and many thanks to the tremendous support we have received from the parents throughout.
Tries: A. Gabbitas (4), N. Majumdar (2), A. Clarke (2)
Stephen Bloom
Saturday 11th March Durston House U13 7s Tournament [a]
After our superb win at Merchant Taylors’ just three days earlier, our focus switched from the full-sided game to the 7s format as a squad of nine made the early morning trip to Ealing for the annual Durston House 7s Tournament. Several mismatches in terms of size, height and weight made much of the morning a pretty brutal one, as 7s can be such an exposed format, but the boys persevered throughout and played some excellent rugby.
Match 1 vs. Gunnersbury – lost 0-29
In a round-robin format involving six teams, our first match was against Gunnersbury, a formidable team boasting several giants. The fact that Archie Clarke and Alex Gabbitas, our biggest players, were dwarfed in comparison to the Gunnersbury personnel says it all really. Despite the scoreline, we actually played some decent 7s rugby, far more structured and disciplined than our opponents, but we could do nothing in the face of such brutality. For all the structure and discipline, nothing can be done at times against sheer strength and Gunnersbury simply overpowered us to run out convincing winners.
Match 2 vs. Hlll House – lost 0-27
A slight improvement in terms of the scoreline but much the same in terms of the way the match went. It seemed things would transpire against us right from the kick off as a horrible bounce fell straight to the chasing Hill House heavies and we conceded within ten seconds of the kick off. More worrying was a heavy collision involving our captain Archie and, after being assessed by the St. John’s ambulance staff, it was decided that his participation in the tournament was over.
Match 3 vs. The Hall – lost 5-19 (Try: O. Slade)
The third of the immense opposition, The Hall, were our opponents in the next match and again we were overpowered by their players. We showcased a good range of 7s skills, hurriedly practised in our games lesson on Friday, but simply could not compete with such fierce opposition. Elliott Taylor fell victim to a second head injury we endured and we found ourselves down to the bare bones of a 7-man team when he, like Archie, was ruled out of the remainder of the tournament. Beaten but not broken, the boys showed remarkable character to score the final try, our first of the morning, when the indefatigable Oliver Slade ran almost the length of the pitch to touch down for the game’s final score after great hands through the backs from Nicholas Adhami, Zak O’Connor and Alex.
Match 4 vs. Durston House ‘B’ – won 33-0 (Tries: N. Majumdar 3, O. Slade 2; Conversions: H. Woodcock 4)
Finally, and at the fourth time of asking, we met our match in terms of size and this allowed us to score the tries which our play and resolve had merited all morning. We scored 28 unanswered points in the first half, Nabil Majumdar and Oliver helping themselves to a brace of tries apiece with Henry Woodcock converting all of them with good drop kicks. Needing to conserve what energy remained for our final match, we eased off a little in the second half but still scored with the final play as Nabil completed his hat-trick.
Match 5 vs. Durston House ‘A’ – drew 10-10 (Tries: H. Woodcock, O. Slade)
Our final match of the morning saw us play Durston House’s ‘A’ team and it produced the most competitive of our matches. We defended resolutely in the first half and assumed the lead just before half time with a great counterattacking move. Kian Gandhi broke several tackles to make good ground before some great interchange, offloading and support play between Alex, Oliver and Henry saw the latter crash over. An unsuccessful conversion saw us 5-0 ahead at the break. After all the stubbornness we had displayed in the first half, we undid all of that in the opening two minutes of the second half as two catastrophic handling errors gifted Durston House a 10-5 lead. However, just like we had done all morning, we did not let our heads drop and scored a superb try with the game’s final play to rescue a draw when a sublime grubber kick from Henry fell perfectly for the onrushing Oliver to touch down in the corner. We could not quite land a difficult conversion attempt from the touchline and had to settle for a 10-10 draw.
The morning panned out pretty much as one would have expected looking at the make-up of the teams. Three teams had some absolute animals of rugby players and overwhelmed us (as expected), one team were outplayed by us (as expected) and the other one finished as a draw in a match which could have gone either way. The boys did themselves proud and I thank them for their wholehearted efforts and their parents for their excellent support all morning in tough circumstances at times. For the record, Gunnersbury won the tournament as they beat The Hall in a winner-takes-all final match of the morning.
Squad: Archie Clarke (captain), Nicholas Adhami, Kian Gandhi, Elliott Taylor, Zak O’Connor, Henry Woodcock, Alex Gabbitas, Oliver Slade, Nabil Majumdar
Stephen Bloom
Wednesday 8th March 1st XII v Merchant Taylors’ [a] - won 45-25
With several players unavailable for selection leaving us with a bare 12 for the trip to Northwood to face a typically good Merchant Taylors’ side, one could be forgiven for thinking we could be in for a long afternoon. Much better then that the boys should turn in their finest performance of the season to record an outstanding win.
The match kicked off under leaden skies with former players Alan Lewis and Sho Payette, two terrific players (the former our captain) from the Class of 2016 and now Merchant Taylors’ pupils, watching on from the touchline. Right from the start, the boys in the red and black of Orley Farm looked to dominate the game and seven unanswered tries in a scintillating first half performance was due reward. As we strode off 35 points to the good at half time, I heard one Merchant Taylors’ parent comment with massive understatement, “They’re a decent side are Orley Farm”. And he wasn’t wrong.
Whilst the seven tries were all scored by only two players, Alex Gabbitas with four and Nabil Majumdar with three, this was very much a complete team performance. In the forwards, we rucked magnificently with Kian Gandhi always on hand at the breakdown to secure possession for the next phase of play. His comrades amongst the forwards played their part, too. Saahil Bahadur and Arav Patel enjoyed plenty of the ball and made a number of telling runs whilst skipper Archie Clarke impressed former captain Alan with his sheer power and ability to consistently break the gain-line. And then there was Nicholas Adhami, a better tackler I have not seen for a long time, who left his mark on many of the Merchant Taylors’ players.
If numbers 1-5 did their job up front then the backs certainly did their bit to match them with their handling as good as it has been all season. Zak O’Connor, debuting at scrum half, was magnificent all game. With the ability to dig the ball out early, a good range of passing and an eye for a quick dart or two himself, Zak took to 1st team rugby like the proverbial duck to water. Henry Woodcock, the second of the half back pairing, was industrious at fly half. He made several dynamic breaks himself and his link play with the three quarters was excellent with his timing and execution spot on all afternoon. Aside of his tries, Alex was superb with a number of impressive carries and passes as well as huge hits on the opposition. Outside of him was Oliver Slade, playing at outside centre for the first time this season due to an absence there; although you wouldn’t have known it. Oliver always had that ability to find a gap and seemed to keep momentum going even when the chances are that he would be stopped. His timing of the offload today was impeccable and he was similarly effective in defence.
Finally, there were the back three. Nabil ran incredibly today and left the opposition grasping at thin air many times down the left touchline as he ran in three first half tries. On the other side, Aaron Kibria did not have the tries to show for his efforts, but also offered a fast and elusive outlet on the right flank. Zainali Jamal, like Zak promoted from the 2nd XII team, was brilliant at full back and looked totally at home in a 1st team shirt. He caught and ran exceptionally under pressure and was on hand to make a number of strong tackles as well.
All I could warn against in the second half during my half time team talk was complacency. One or two tries back and Merchant Taylors’ would have a sniff of an unlikely comeback and momentum can be found a great thing in sport. But we were in no mood to be so generous today and we started the second half in the same way that we had started and played throughout the first. Another multi-phased possession saw Archie pick the ball from the base of a ruck to crash over in the corner to extend our lead.
A tricky period then ensued as Merchant Taylors’ scored four tries in less than ten minutes. Our rucking was not quite at the level it had been and our hosts found themselves with more of the ball. Their ball carriers, hitherto restricted to fleeting runs with the ball, started to fire and, all of a sudden, our 40-point lead had been halved. However, not wanting to undo such sterling work, we regained our composure and took the sting out of the game well with a concerted spell of possession. It was left to Alex to score his fifth try, courtesy of a beautifully rehearsed move with Henry, at the end of this period to vanquish any lingering hopes which Merchant Taylors’ had of pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat. A late home score off the game’s final play, where there was a hint of a foot in touch, would not detract from what had been a terrific performance from the team as we finished comprehensive 45-25 winners.
It would be remiss of me to name a Man-of-the-Match as this was a complete team performance with all 12 boys contributing enormously to our win. It was a real treat of an afternoon for our strong travelling support and a perfect way to start our final seven days of competitive rugby as we now look forward to the annual Durston House 7s Tournament on Saturday morning before finishing up with a trip to Haileybury next Wednesday afternoon…
Tries: A. Gabbitas (5), N. Majumdar (3), A. Clarke
Stephen Bloom
Wednesday 1st March 1st XIII v Arnold House [h] - lost 30-35
After a narrow loss for several of our senior boys in Monday’s basketball match to Westbrook Hay (going down by one basket 28-30), this was another stinging narrow defeat by just one try in an absorbing game with Arnold House. There were two main architects to our downfall today: the first a towering opposition player who accounted for five of their seven tries and the second ourselves as we played with reckless abandon at times and didn’t maintain enough structure and discipline to our game nor learn from our mistakes. In short, this was a game we could, and should, have won but were left to reflect on one that got away.
We started the game very much in the ascendancy and scored the opening try within five minutes. When we realised that sideways running would not get us any nearer to the Arnold House try line, Archie Clarke had the novel idea of running straight and a quick pick from the base of a ruck saw us five points to the good. Alas, this would be the only time we were to lead in the match. It did not seem that way though as we remained encamped inside the opposition 22 before more sideways running and a weak pass facilitated an Arnold House interception and 80 metres later they had levelled the match.
Surely a team would learn from this…? Not us. Moments later we were at it again and an interception on the halfway line this time, so perhaps a minor improvement, saw Arnold House assume the lead 10-5. Throughout the game we were culpable of abandoning our multi-phase principle and tried to score in one phase. However, one of the only times we didn’t saw us steadily gain yardage before a sweeping backs move allowed Alex Gabbitas to restore parity.
It was not long before we were chasing the game again when a succession of missed tackles on their key player saw him re-establish their lead. True, he was something of a machine with ball in hand, and an excellent hand off made the job of bringing him down even harder, but when our drilled flat defensive line disintegrated it was simple for him to pick his way through.
If there was one attribute we demonstrated today, it was bottle and again we hauled ourselves level. A clever kick (we kicked far too much today) from Alex bore fruit and Nabil Majumdar, having run onto it ahead of his man, didn’t cut back into the traffic as he had moments earlier to thwart a certain try but carried on the outside showing a clean pair of heels to the hapless defenders to stride home. Arnold House weren’t done with the scoring for the half just yet though and, when we thought tackling round the waist or even the chest would work, another try was conceded after a host of missed tackles. A 15-20 deficit at half time led to some animated words from a frustrated coach.
High and missed tackling saw Arnold House get the first score of the second half as well as, for the first time in the match, there was more than one try between the teams. However, we demonstrated that never-say-die attitude again and we dragged ourselves level with two tries worked well through the backs: first, a succession of sweeping passes saw Alex touch down in the corner before another flowing passing move to the other flank saw a well-timed offload from Oliver Slade enable Nabil to slide into the corner for his second try of the afternoon.
We even looked like claiming the lead again for the first time since the start of the match when we had a lengthy spell of possession inside the Arnold House half. However, a knock on with the whites of the try line in our sight gave the scrum to our visitors and, gut-wrenchingly, the Arnold House inside centre broke a couple of tackles with the assistance of his excellent fending skills and galloped the length of the pitch to score.
Still the Orley boys wouldn’t be beaten and the most perfectly timed pass from Henry Woodcock to Alex enabled our (joint) Man-of-the-Match to bludgeon his way through the Arnold House rear-guard to complete his hat-trick of tries. Unfortunately, an old calf injury flared up in doing so and that were to end his significant contribution to proceedings. Without Alex in the backs, we suddenly looked considerably smaller and a little more vulnerable as the clock ticked down towards the end of the match.
With missed tackles and interceptions vying for the Arnold House MVP (Most Valuable Player) award, it was the latter which prevailed as another floaty pass was picked off on the halfway line and returned with glee by the Arnold House powerhouse. Alas, this time there was to be no coming back and we tumbled to a disheartening 35-30 defeat.
I mentioned Alex as a joint Man-of-the-Match today and that accolade is shared with Nicholas Adhami who tackled superbly throughout. Time and again it seemed that Nicky would make one crunching tackle before picking himself up to make the next. For the squad, it is back to basics in our next two training sessions before the visit to Merchant Taylors’ next week as we try to recapture some of the structure and discipline that was missing too often from our game today.
Tries: A. Gabbitas (3), N. Majumdar (2), A. Clarke
Stephen Bloom
Wednesday 22nd February 1st XIII v Kingshott [a] - lost 0-40/won 45-0
The 1st XIII’s first match after the half term break took them up the A1 to Hitchin as Kingshott were our hosts today. A steep pitch and a considerable wind (both favouring the same direction) greeted us as we took to the field with full availability barring one player.
Despite our most resilient efforts, we were simply overpowered by Kingshott in the first half. Our two or three imposing and physically bigger players were dwarfed by seven or eight in the Kingshott ranks, many of them club players on the weekends. Try as we might, we were unable to contain them with the gradient of the pitch and the gusty wind both against us as well.
It would be remiss of me to suggest that we didn’t tackle well enough because with many of the physical mismatches on show, as well as the elements, it was easy to see why Kingshott were able to break through our defence. True we didn’t showcase our best rugby – often we presented poorly and ran impulsively without support – but this was a chastening 25 minutes of rugby and one which saw our hosts score eight (I think!) tries. Rugby, prep school rugby, can be unforgiving if there is an imbalance and that had been the case in the first half. Unlike cricket, where one unplayable delivery and one lapse of judgement can undo a star batsman and end his contribution, that star rugby player(s) will simply come again and again.
Half time brought about the opportunity to recharge flagging energy and possibly confidence levels as well as resting one or heavy hits. Kingshott, very sportingly, also made several changes to their personnel as they took off several of their ‘gun players’ to even things up a little. A much shuffled opposition, plus the slope and wind advantage, understandably buoyed the Orley Farm troops and the second half gave way to the sporting cliché of ‘a game of two halves’.
Whilst the physical discrepancy was not as evident, the skill levels of the two teams made up for that as we dominated the second period in almost the same try-scoring count that Kingshott did in the first. Seven different players ran in nine tries which was pleasing but still our game was not especially fluent and not nearly at the level of the St. Martin’s match two weeks ago. Our handling – in testing conditions – was very good indeed; I can’t remember us knocking on once in the entire match nor even dropping a pass sideways or backwards.
In hindsight, the format that we ended up playing today would have yielded a more evenly matched contest had we played with the wind and down the slope against their elite team and then into the wind and up the slope against their replacements. But hindsight is a wonderful thing and we weren’t to know how the match would pan out.
Senior players such as Archie Clarke, Alex Gabbitas and Nicky Adhami relished the physical battle in the first half but it was two Year 7 boys who share the Man-of-the-Match honour today. Jay Raithatha and Kian Gandhi both turned in really brave performances and battled relentlessly throughout the match. In a season where the majority of our matches see us on the road, we look forward to welcoming Arnold House to South Hill Avenue next Wednesday…
Tries: A. Gabbitas (2), A. Clarke (2), J. Raithatha, O. Slade, A. Patel, E. Greaves, H. Woodcock
Stephen Bloom
Wednesday 8th February 1st XIII v St. Martin’s [a] - won 80-10
Frustrations of a disjointed term with exams, interviews, illness, injuries, frozen pitches, waterlogged pitches and any other reasons for training and matches to be hijacked were well and truly taken out on St. Martin’s as we romped to a crushing victory in Northwood. Such a winning margin suggests that St. Martin’s were a pushover but, whilst true that we will face sterner tests, I would like to think it was the quality of our rugby which yielded such a convincing result.
Debutant Hugo Dorrian made our intentions clear within the first minute when he made excellent use of good early ball from our industrious scrum half Elliott Taylor to jink his way over the line. Nabil Majumdar was soon amongst the tries, his second in as many games, when he strode to the corner after being played in by Alex Gabbitas, all this after captain Archie Clarke had stolen the ball in a maul. It was soon 15-0 as Archie got his first of four tries for the afternoon when he touched down after a strong break and perfectly executed offload from Oliver Slade.
St. Martin’s, barely in the game until this point, then served notice of their own ability with two tries in the space of a couple of minutes. Both came from the same source of an inside centre, a boy with pace to burn, as he went the long way round (not pretty rugby, but effective nonetheless) on both occasions to score twice in the corner. However, both tries came about when we missed the first tackle on him, mistakes we would not make again.
A narrow 15-10 lead suggested the game would be relatively close but we simply stepped up a gear to score five more tries before the interval. We were guilty at times of sloppy handling and abandoning our multi-phase approach to try and score too hastily rather than relying on good presentation and urgency to the breakdown and subsequent realignment, but we continuously forced turnovers to regain possession. Our rucking was excellent and we won a number of scrums against the head.
Alex got the first of his six tries before Aaron Kibria threatened to run the ball in from the resulting kick off only to be stopped inside the home team’s 22 with the whites of the try line in sight. However, his good recycling of the ball enabled Archie to double his tally for the afternoon. Alex scored his second soon after, hitting a crash ball from Hugo with exquisite timing from where there was no stopping him. Jay Raithatha, brilliant in the forwards today, then scored the team try of the match when good rucking from Kian Gandhi and Nicky Adhami enabled him to pick the ball from the base of the ruck to charge over the line with excellent leaching support coming from Saahil Bahadur. Oliver’s resilient run and try, one in which he looked as if he would stopped several times, ended the first half scoring as we moved into a 40-10 half time lead.
With the match as a contest all but decided, what was most encouraging in the second half was the team ethic that the boys maintained. There was no ‘me me me’ attitude but instead an implementation of genuine ‘Orley Farm Rugby’ which we work so hard on in our training sessions. With minutes of the restart, Jay embarked on another marauding run feeding Henry Woodcock (who would directly set up the first of four tries in the second half) who played in Alex. Unselfishness personified, Alex released Ethan Greaves, when it would have been easier to score himself, who scored his first try of the season after several near misses in the first half.
Alex then did complete his hat-trick when Henry’s steal and pass allowed him to dart in to score in the corner before Archie followed suit from Alex’s pass. Oliver scored his second try of the afternoon, almost a carbon copy of the first, as he broke tackle after tackle to score after gathering a swirling kick near the halfway line. Alex doubled his tally with three more tries, (i) after great hands and offload from Henry, (ii) thanks to Arav Patel’s well-timed pass after charging a kick down, and (iii) when he capitalised on a loose ball after great high pressing defence from Elliott and Henry. Archie rounded off the scoring with his fourth of the match when Henry’s quick thinking at a penalty released him with the home team defence caught napping.
Whilst we will doubtless face stronger opposition after half term, this was still a very satisfying performance from every boy in the squad. All 14 of the match day squad will be able to find their name in the report as all 14 contributed in some way to our win. However, there are four boys I will nominate as joint Men-of-the-Match: Archie Clarke and Jay Raithatha in the forwards – the former leading by example and using his power on a number of occasions to impose himself on the game and the latter heeding my advice and losing his ‘Mr Nice Guy’ personality (on the pitch) to put in a ruthless and uncompromising performance; and Alex Gabbitas and Oliver Slade in the backs – the former playing such a team role all afternoon and still scoring an astonishing six tries and the latter tackling bravely and scoring two tries from unfavourable positions through sheer grit and determination.
Tries: A. Gabbitas (6), A. Clarke (4), O. Slade (2), H. Dorrian, N. Majumdar, J. Raithatha, E. Greaves
Stephen Bloom
Wednesday 18th January 1st XIII v The Hall [a] - lost 10-45
Despite being well beaten by a typically strong team from The Hall, there was much to be positive about in what was just the boys’ third session on the grass this term. Inevitably, there are many areas which need tidying up, but that is only to be expected so early in the term as boys switch their football heads to rugby ones and a new team is given time to gain more cohesiveness and learn each other’s games better.
As always seems to be the case in a term decimated by absences, we fielded a bare 13 due to senior school exams, illness and injury. After conceding the first three tries of the game – two down to poor tackling and one when, dejectedly for us, The Hall’s inside centre ran from under his posts (when we had looked likely to score) to score under ours – we opened our account for the season. Playing to our Orley Farm Playbook and implementing the ‘Same Way Rugby’ methodology, the ball found its way to Ethan Greaves whose perfectly timed offload found the onrushing Nabil Majumdar on the left wing. As the flying Nabil got into his stride, the result was inevitable as he showed a clean pair of heels to the opposition defence to touch down in the corner.
This proved to be the final score of the half as we turned around 15-5 in arrears. With captain Archie Clarke and joint Man-of-the-Match Nicky Adhami doing some sterling work in the forwards and tackling like Trojans, and Elliott Taylor busy and inventive at scrum half, we started the second half well but were unable to find a second score. We were seduced at times by the whites of the try line rather than adopting our ‘Multi Phase’ approach and relying on good presentation and urgency to the breakdown.
After withstanding our pressure, The Hall scored a couple of tries before Ethan Watson-Mattis received the ball on halfway and strode away majestically to double our tally. As we fatigued, The Hall scored several late tries to give them the win which their all-round team ability deserved. Eight or nine of our players competed gamely throughout but a few struggled with the demands of 1st team rugby and this imbalance showed in the latter stages.
Immediate areas to work on… well, for our backs it would be coming on to the ball at pace and defending with a high line (the latter epitomised by our second Man-of-the-Match Oliver Slade throughout the match) and for our forwards it would be to share the load at the breakdown as too often it was the same faces popping up in the loose. Generally, tackling needs to be more consistent because when a first tackle is missed and the opposition have one or two speedy players, as they did today, it can quickly lead to a concession. However, as I mentioned at the start of this report, we are in the early stages of the season and these are areas which can be addressed in our next couple of training sessions before the trip to Edge Grove next Wednesday.
Tries: N. Majumdar, E. Watson-Mattis
Stephen Bloom