Paviors RFC

Paviors U14’s travelled to Mansfield to play in what is usually a close match with good spirit from both players and coaches. Today was no different.

We took 23 players having only rested a couple of players this week. Benny came to watch so we had a brilliant turnout on chilly but dry morning. A few lads were playing in new positions with Taylor filling in on the back row, Cole moving from the wing into outside centre and Henry and Ollie D both playing half a game at fly half. They all performed well, and it can only help their and the teams development. It was also good to have Nick back from injury and Joseph also playing for the first time in a while.

The game was started with some direct running from both teams and both defences being forced into lots of tackles. Tackles were generally good and getting lower although still the odd one over the shoulder even from some of our shorter players.

Paviors first try came from the rejuvenated Nick who came away with the ball in the middle of the pitch and ran the ball in after a solid hand off on one of Mansfield’s defenders. He was tackled over the line which gave a difficult conversion attempt that was missed

Mansfield came back through a well run line from their inside centre that put him through a gap in our defence and through to score leaving a tricky kick for posts. The flanker who took the kick made it look easy and slotted through to the applause of the growing crowd.

The Paviors scrum in this game was awesome with us winning all our scrums and taking some against the head. Our push was well timed, and this gave us a lot of quality ball. Nick’s second try came from another dominant scrum giving him the chance to pick and go from Nr 8, to break down the blindside and score under the posts giving Owen a conversion from in front of the posts that he took well.

One of the moments of the game came in the first half after a bout of kicking when one of Mansfield’s forwards ran at Louie. This looked like it could be a case of Louie being run over but he went in low, got in a great tackle position, wrapped his arms and took the runner down with ease. Louie again showing that technique and bravery are more important than size when it comes to tackling. It turned out that Mansfield had been offside from a kick so Paviors took the ball and kicked for touch and a lineout.

Mansfield started the second half with some more direct running and with some good support this led to a try out wide despite Paviors holding their line well. The kick was too far out this time and fell short.

Paviors started to give away a few more penalties but this week they did well to get back 10m quickly and didn’t get caught out with quick takes. At one point the ref awarded a scrum and such was their effort not to be caught out we heard shouts of “back 10” from the team before they realised it wasn’t a penalty. Great to see them learning from previous experience.

One penalty for Mansfield led to an attempt at goal and their kicker put it over making the score 15-12 to the home team. The Paviors lads didn’t let this get to them and re-grouped to win the ball back, pass it wide and send Cole over for a 3rd try for the team. This one was also converted giving us a 4 point lead. Although only one try came from spreading the ball, our passing today was a big improvement on recent weeks, and we were unfortunate that it didn’t lead to more points because Mansfield tackled back well.

Mansfield won another penalty near the posts and chose to kick again, this time leaving it slightly short and giving the Pavs lads the chance to learn what they had to do. We had players in position near the posts who gathered the ball and realised it wasn’t dead and they had to run the ball out of defence which they did well.

The final whistle blew soon after and the lads were extremely happy to come away with the first win in quite a few games. Captain Morgan led them from the pitch after another game where he communicated well with the team and the referee and kept the spirits up when heads could have dropped.

The main area for improvement was our speed and position into rucks as this was an area that Mansfield dominated. There were more positives though: Our scrums were great, tackling improving, kicks and chases into space worked well and our passing was a big improvement.