Paviors RFC

We played our first game of this season at Matlock and narrowly lost so we hoped we could reverse the result in this game at Burntstump. From the start Paviors put the visitors under pressure which led to a fumble picked up by Ben who used his pace to run in from outside the 22 to touch down. It was a very positive first few minutes but would be our only try of the first half.

Matlock scored their first try down the narrow side from a lineout with a well worked move that we failed to deal with. As the half wore on, we succumbed to several injuries, including Warren who sustained ligament damage to his ankle after a storming run, and this disrupted our flow. However, it was our Matlock’s good running and our poor tackling that was our downfall as they ran in 3 more tries in the first half to take a convincing lead at the break. The score at half time was 22-5 in their favour.

In the second half Paviors improved considerably and with better handling and continuity drove to where Harry stretched out for the line, but the ref didn’t think he’d stretched enough. Fin was first to react to get the ball over the line and start our comeback. Tackling height and confidence improved which led to more opportunity to compete for the ball. Both teams did this and rucks were turned over by both sides with Matlock taking advantage to score 2 more tries in the second half.

However, Paviors kept fighting and a scrum near the Matlock line led to options on both sides. The ball was fed to Fin who was now playing at fly half and with Max out wide providing support, Fin was able to throw a dummy and touch down.

Nearing the end of the game the ball was spread wide to Ben who sprinted passed the defence to score a final try of the game giving a 22-38 result to Matlock. In total they scored 6 tries and converted 4 of these. Paviors score 4 tries and converted 1. The Paviors improvement was shown by us scoring more points in the 2nd half, but Matlock fully deserved the victory.

In the post-match chat, the lads pin-pointed the main reasons for the defeat which will give them areas to improve on in their next match. There are areas for the coaches to focus on too but there were also a lot of positives to take from the game: Scrums were strong with some taken against the head, tackling improved as the game went on, handling and interchange between backs and forwards was great at times and the team reacted well to losing players to injury and changing positions when required. Everyone put a big shift in with a number playing a full game due to injuries. Big thanks go to Fin who started at flanker for the first time and played well in this new position, and then moved to fly half when needed and went on to score 2 tries.