Paviors RFC

We travelled to Lincoln to play a team who stuffed us (putting it politely) a year ago. We had gone into that game in very cold weather with a very poor attitude. The weather today was challenging for different reasons but would the lads bring the right attitude?

The pitch had a good slope from end to end and the strong wind was blowing straight from top to bottom. Not conditions that the lads had come across on a full size pitch. We played down the slope with the wind behind in the first half.

The slope definitely helped and Paviors spent the first half camped in Lincoln’s half. We had lots of possession but the wind blowing the ball forward meant lots of good passes in normal conditions turned into knock-ons, giving the ball back to Lincoln in scrums. Our pack was dominant in the scrums all day, winning a number against the head, or at least putting Lincoln under lots of pressure.

We had a few opportunities to score but didn’t quite manage to turn them into points because of good defence. This included Isaac being tackled into touch just before the line after a good break down the left wing. But the territory and pressure at scrums eventually led to our first try with Harry scoring from the back of a 5m scrum. Owen slotted the conversion.

The Pavs pressure continued, Lincoln struggled to clear their lines, and a bit of panic set in on their try line. The ball went loose, and Fin was the first to react and touch down in goal. Owen again converted from in front of the posts. A 14 point lead at half time was very positive.

We knew we’d turned up with the right attitude and had given Lincoln a bit of a shock. We also knew that the conditions would be in their favour in the 2nd half and that our defence would have to be solid and getting to the top of the slope to score was going to be a challenge as Lincoln had not been able to get close to scoring at this stage.

Paviors defence against the wind and might of the Lincoln squad was good but as expected, Lincoln had a lot of the ball. Paviors did get the ball out of our half several times through teamwork, support play, good running and short passes, but little fumbles gave them the ball back and their Fly Half put some good kicks to regain their territory. They scored a try down the left wing when they found some space. The kick at goal looked challenging in the conditions but was slotted brilliantly.

They then had a kick through that was missed by their first player and the bounce somehow kept the ball in but evading our players, and was touched down by a following Lincoln player. Again, the conversion was kicked.

Paviors kept working hard and again made their way up the pitch well. But the conditions and fatigue (we only had 1 forwards sub due to late illness) led to Lincoln breaking through some tackles through the middle, tackles we’d made well all day and 2 tries were scored in a 10 minute period where we let things slip slightly. One came from a Goal Line drop out which held up in the wind perfectly for Lincoln to take the catch and burst through from 10m out.

Lincoln kept the pressure up and we tried to clear the ball from our try line by running it (as the wind was so strong). The ball came loose on our side and just as Lincoln had done in the first half, we had a moment of panic when we tried to pass the ball when we probably should have tried to re-set with a ruck. The ball was dropped behind our try line and Lincoln were quickest to the ball to score their final try. Again converted.

There were a couple of minutes to go and Paviors finally put together a complete passage of play through some great whole team play. We worked the ball up the pitch and kept recycling well. We played to the left hand side around half-way and cut back to set up a ruck. The ball came out and we realised the space was out to the right. We got the ball out right, passed and ran well to create space and gave it to Nick who had the power and speed to break through the remaining defenders to score the only try of the game up the hill and into the wind which was a victory in itself.

Although we weren’t the winners, the performance showed how far we have come in the last year in terms of teamwork, attitude, skill and determination. It also showed good levels of leadership by players to calm and reassure their team mates when things got tough and frustrating. Another game to be extremely proud of in the development of this great group of friends.