Youth Rugby - U15B Reports

9th December 2007

Cobham U15B 17 - Old Alleynians 17

League Two

Honours Even

Cobham started well and on the front foot pushing Alleynians back and forcing them to kick for safety. Despite this, along with winning good ball, we were unable to convert possession and field position into points. We lost our cutting edge through Charlie Alstom with a finger  dislocation and therefore lost some of the fluid passing. Alleynians also showed strong defence and good tackling to prevent us from taking our opportunities. Eventually just before half time following some good forward play, Matt Gillott was able to slide over. Cobham 5 Alleynians 0

The half time team talk clearly worked for Alleynians and not for Cobham. They came out fired up. Rather than securing our position we made fundamental and basic areas in the tackle to allow their pacey winger in to make it Cobham 5 Alleynians 7.

This clearly gave them confidence and their pack led well by a strong prop and second row started to make huge ground. We must learn to take the big fellas low or we will get hammered... We failed again and conceded a second try Cobham 5 Alleynians 12.

The good news is that have put ourselves in a stupid position we showed character and spirit to come back strongly and pressurise Alleynians. A charged down kick and the ball bounced into Max Peacock’s hands and he finished well under the posts allowing us to convert and level the scores 12-12. At this stage the game was even with a tight forward battle ensuing. Unfortunately our basic handling skills let us down on several occasions when we had worked hard to win the ball. We did however manage some strong forward play and managed to get over for a third try. To their credit Alleynians came back strongly and created a further opportunity to score and level the scores 17-17.

In the final minutes we pressed hard and created the field position, tapped penalties on a couple of occasions only to be pulled back by the Ref. Should we  have taken the points?.Probably yes but I guess we encourage them to play running rugby and sometimes it goes against you.

Final Score Cobham 17 Old Alleynians 17.

A well contested game played in good spirit by both sides .We wish Old Alleynians well for the rest of the season.

We must learn to execute the basics we practise in training on the field. It is a simple game of passing and tackling low and aggressively. These things let us down on occasions.

Steve