0-0… I won’t get into the many awful cliches about a draw, but it is a bittersweet feeling to play to a scoreless draw. There has been plenty of second guessing and conspiracy theories about Coney Hill’s indifferent home and away form this season, but we knew they’d come after us with everything. I guess we should take it as a compliment that Coney Hill were able to cobble together very close to their strongest team for this derby game- good luck to anyone who plays that mob at Coney Hill! Both teams had chances, but between two outstanding defensive efforts and some poor calls both ways, there could have been a score and a different ending based on how each team responded to the other scoring.
It was an incredibly physical game with a lot of needle and off -the ball stuff; while we expected that from Coney Hill, it still leaves an unsavoury taste. Rugby is a physical and mental contest without the need to resort to thuggery- sadly, it seems that there are still players, teams and Clubs who use this cowardly tactic and unfortunately at our level, if the official doesn’t see it, they go unpunished. Having said that, apparently it’s also ok to stamp on people in front of the ref- one on the head that drew blood and only got a yellow card, the other that caused a shoulder dislocation and got nothing! I’ve been involved in rugby long enough to take the bad decisions and not getting the 50-50 calls, but I get VERY angry where dangerous/ foul play goes unpunished.
The man in the middle has a tough job and it worries me that big derby games like this aren’t given to more experienced referees. I thought the first ¾ of the game were generally quite well reff’ed, and the communication clear. However, the pressure started tell in the last quarter when both teams were really going for it to try and get a result, with decisions becoming erratic and almost no communication with the players at all. I thought both our yellow cards for ‘side entry at the ruck’ were poor decisions, while on the other hand, I thought the Coney Hill players got away with flopping over the ball at rucks / not supporting their bodyweight and therefore preventing a contest. Unfortunately, what I think doesn’t matter, it’s ‘the bloke with the whistle what counts’- one just has to hope they get it right more often than not- I won’t be holding my breath!
We set out to be ambitious and get after them as we were very aware of the implications of winning/ losing for both ourselves and Coney Hill. The fact that we salvaged two points out of it is scant consolation for a massive effort- we wanted to win! We needed to get a result, and we thought we could do that. The side we had out was good enough to put up a better show than we did on attack, but between some excellent defence by Coney Hill and some poor execution on our part, we never crossed the whitewash. I thought the boys worked extremely hard to put ourselves in good attacking positions, but our lack of patience at key moments cost us. There is no hiding from it; we certainly need to improve in that area as it was our undoing last weekend as well.
Given Coney Hill’s strengths, our plan was based around getting a good start and disrupting their much vaunted power game and I think we did that really well. Without their usual physical dominance and customary intimidatory tactics working, we forced Coney Hill into trying to play some rugby, which we felt they would struggle with, and they did to an extent. We aimed to keep the ball and to dominate possession while matching them physically and that went very well for us too, maybe too well- we’ve lost a couple of players to injury (one through dirty play) so our depth will be tested in the next few weeks. We controlled large parts of the game without really breaking through and we also weathered the storm in the second half when Coney Hill became desperate and really had a go at us, including having a driven maul held up on the line and a kick and chase try disallowed. A couple of missed penalties by them nearly sealed the game, but we dug deep and when we did break out towards the end, I thought that was the game decided, but a pass adjudged to be forward denied us the win. Did I think we got out of jail? Maybe, but so did they!
Positives? I thought the character & physicality were top notch- we didn’t back down from the intimidation factor and our discipline on the whole was good, denying Coney Hill opportunities to punish us with the boot. I thought Josh Griffin (7) Jason Graham (9) and Mark Whitney (13) were outstanding for us defensively, Charlie Daniell our captain led from the front again, while the whole pack (Teddy Saunders, Phil Liebrandt, Rich Athey, James Milne, John Bryant and Matt Francis) fronted up and matched Coney Hill at scrum, ruck and maul. Ben Hough, Josh Herbert and Tom Lait threatened with ball in hand, Beren Delbrooke-Jones was solid at the back, but unfortunately, we lacked our usual rhythm and fluidity in the backs. Our team defence was pretty good on the whole too- we scrambled well, put huge pressure on them in the mid field and denied them space out wide.
As a group, we are still very much a work in progress. The Coney Hill game was a big step up, but we can and will get better. Our performance against a strong Coney Hill side will be a big boost for the confidence of the squad as a whole, but also because we rectified a number of the defensive lapses that had let us down the week before in Maidenhead. The work in the contact area was certainly a step up from where it had been at Maidenhead, which was critical, because it allowed us to retain possession for long periods of the game and also win some vital turnovers.
The boys deserve a global high five for the way they’ve responded both to last weekend’s defeat and to the Coney Hill onslaught- they believe in each other and will work hard for each other no matter who we are playing, which is the main thing. We don’t tend to focus that much on the opposition; other than assessing their strengths and potential weaknesses, it’s more about ourselves, both as a team collectively and every player individually. What every individual does at any given moment, added to what we do as a team is what counts and ultimately what wins and loses games.
No doubt another stern test lies ahead of us this weekend. Although we’re playing everyone for the 2nd time now, Reading Abbey are something of an unknown quantity as they have made a promising start to the 2nd half of the competition and being up against a top of the table team is more than motivation for any side in this league as we’ve experienced. We’re looking forward to the challenge and hope to see as many of you as possible over there, or back home at the Prince of Wales Stadium for our clash with Reading the weekend after.
See you in the stands,
Will
