Sun 10 Oct 2021, 10:00
Paviors U14's took on Southwell at their ground on a beautiful looking front pitch, not the bumpy mud bath many of us coaches remember playing on. We played down hill in the first half with the sun behind us and from their kick off it looked as if it could be a long day. A lack of communication from the high drop kick led to the ball bouncing around and Southwell pushed us back towards our own try line. The boys regained their composure quickly though and worked their way back down the slope with good interplay and support between forwards and backs which eventually led to a space for outside centre Max to touch down for the first try of the game.
Southwell tried playing their expansive game to get the ball wide to their speedy wingers but Paviors defence held firm and even when they got to some space on the outside our full back was across to make the cover tackles and enough players back to support. In previous seasons their quick wide men would have got away for some tries but they never managed to get around our defence on this occassion. Maybe we've caught them up for speed or our defence has improved. There were some great tackles from full backs and wingers, especially Louie who claimed a rarely given Man of the Match award for his brilliant defensive performance. He showed that size is far less important than technique and committment when it comes to tackling.
In the first half scrums had a contested hook but no pushing. It was great to see a move between Scrum Half and Nr 8 come off and create some strong go forward ball. The boys followed up with positive drives and it was definately a day when more direct play was working well, unlike the previous week when quick wide ball worked well. It's great to see that the lads can score in more than one way. In the first half we rucked well and turned over some possession and we had a try (or 2) from Nick from strong runs in open play. The half finished with another strong forwards drive that was finished off with a try from Sam.
The rotation of our 20 player match squad continued and the front row was strengthened for a 2nd half where we introduced pushing in the scrums. We held strong in the scrums and had a few more crash balls from the forwards that Southwell struggled to deal with gaining us a lot of ground up the hill. Again our defence held strong even after losing both of our regular full backs to injuries with othe players stepping in. In the backs we had Henry and Owen play at fly half for the first time (both who did really well) and Isaac on the wing for his first game. We also had firsts in the forwards with Daniel playing his first ever game having only taken up the game at school recently and Harry taking on drop kick duties when both regular kickers went off to the surprise of most of the onlookers.
In the second half we had further tries with Nick getting his 3rd and to round off his defensive display, Louie scored a good team try in the corner. The forwards continued to dominate and the game was almost rounded off with a 7th try but on the final whistle Josh was held up over the line. It was the first time this season that we have kept a clean sheet and that topped a really good performance from the whole team.
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