Paviors RFC

This week we welcomed Nottingham Casuals to a foggy Burntstump. When I arrived you couldn’t see the 3rd pitch from the clubhouse but fortunately the worst of the fog had lifted by the time the lads from Paviors and Casuals U15s (and the training U13’s and U14’s) held a minutes silence before kick-off.

The match started with Casuals playing up the slope and early on they took the ball blind from a scrum and found space wide on the right and down the wing but had the presence of mind to score under the posts. However, they missed the conversion, and this wasn’t the start of a poor performance as Paviors hit back quickly. Soon after the re-start and with good position won, Ayden broke through to score a try and Owen converted to put Paviors into a lead they would not relinquish.

Following on from our good defence in the last match, the team continued to tackle very well and after our ruck training mid-week, players were hitting the breakdowns in numbers and recycling the ball quickly. This gave us good ball to attack with and although the pitch and the ball were slippery, Ayden was able to get over the line for a 2nd try.

With the damp conditions we used a good kicking game to put the Casuals back line under pressure and it gave us good territory. We had opportunities out wide, but the Casuals defence held strong against our backs. Both teams fought hard, and it took Nick’s strength to break through some tackles to extend the lead before half time as he dived under the posts. Again converted. The half time score was 19-5 to the home team. Three tries and all from the 2nd row.

At half time the chat between the lads was about how they could get better and especially spread the ball a bit wider as the fog was lifting and conditions were slightly easier for handling. They did get the ball out to the backs more but it was another forward who scored the next try but set up through the backs.

The ball was spread through the hand to the right wing where Josh stepped inside to set up a ruck. The ball was recycled and picked up by Elijah who came back to the left and saw a gap in the defensive line that he accelerated through only to be tackled about 15m from the line. He was supported by Oli who called for the ball to be popped from the ground which Elijah managed and Oli was able to bump off a tackle and drive over to score our fourth try.

The next 2 tries went back to the forwards after lots of attacking pressure and Nick scored them both, the 2nd from a penalty that Casuals conceded on the 5m line.

The lads kept the pressure on right to the end. The backs got a fair bit more ball but passes slightly behind the support runners broke down a few attacks. This shows the need for our attack runners to hold their depth, so they are always running onto the ball. Eventually the backs got their reward and Josh cut a great line back through the defenders to score under the posts. When converted the final whistle blew on a 45-7 victory.

We scored 7 tries in total and 5 conversions were shared between Cole and Owen. As noted before the defence was excellent once we settled in after their first try, and our spirit and the leadership shown after going behind was great to see and hear. Our rucks were much improved through teamwork, and we managed the conditions well too with good kicking and kick chases. Scrums were solid and our lineouts worked well, with good variation used to slow down their defence.