Paviors RFC

Another game I had to ref so although I saw it all from close up, I can’t remember a lot that happened. There are also no photo’s as Hilary wasn’t there and this often helps me remember what happened.

Long Eaton, a mixed u15’s / U16’s team, started strongly and were 1st to score with quick break down their left following a Paviors fumble in midfield. But the lads rallied themselves to get back into the game.

It was a tight half with plenty of scrums created by defensive pressure being applied by both sides. There were also a lot of good probing kicks, especially from Long Eaton. But it was Paviors who were next to score when Long Eaton were unable to stop a marauding Nick.

The half finished with a second try for Long Eaton through their forwards from a blind side move from a lineout. They won the 1st half 12-5 having kicked a great conversion.

In the second half, there were again a lot of scrums to test both sets of front rows, but Paviors took a bit more control of the game and scored 4 tries in the half. Apologies if these aren’t in the right order:

• Fin scored 2 tries when the ball was passed into the centres and the defence was unable to spot his dummy and stop his power on both occasions.

• Oli C scored when Long Eaton had a ruck on their own line. The ball was pushed back into In-Goal, but not touched down (in the referee’s opinion) by the defence. There is no off-side line In-Goal and Oli’s was quickest to realise this and dived on the ball.

• Isaac scored when the ball was put in space out wide and he scored in the corner. The touch judge was in the best place to confirm the grounding.

With 2 conversions from Owen, the game finished with the final score being 12-29 to the visitors.

A couple of Areas for improvement for us to work on:

1. Speed to and Control of the ball at rucks.

2. Draw and pass before contact, rather than taking on an extra man, causing the support players to over run the ball. Especially where there is a overlap.

Player of the Match. Special mention today goes to not one player, but the whole of the front row. They had no replacements, and all played the whole game. They’d have been forgiven for taking a rest between the multiple scrums, but Warren, Reed and Jon kept working hard all over the pitch right to the end.