Paviors RFC

On the first proper sunny Sunday morning we’ve had this year, the U14’s ventured south of the river to play against Moderns at Wilford. After 4 players dropped out in the last 24 hours for various reasons the planning of positions and rotations was all changed but we still had a squad of 18 to play 3 x 20mins 3rds of rugby.

For the first 5 mins we held onto the ball well, recycled quickly and pushed up the pitch retaining possession well. This led to good territory, but our passing wasn’t as slick as last week. Despite the pressure and opportunity to score, passes behind support players in space led to missed opportunities. Moderns were also quicker to the rucks than us at times giving them the chance to steal the ball.

When Moderns got the ball they attacked with support and good offloading which drove them forward and they looked dangerous. They kept the passes quite short which in the strong wind was a good plan and our tackling was often too high. It was the tackling that was our undoing and Moderns were able to score 3 tries with no reply after our heads dropped a bit. It could have been one more but Benny got under the ball to hold it up over the line.

After a regroup we played the 2nd third with the wind at our backs. Kicking gained us some territory but also gave Moderns the ball back. Keeping the ball in hand worked better and after a good break down the right by Isaac and quick support, the ball was passed out to the left where Fin dummied to Harry on the wing and lunged over the line himself for our first try. Moderns continued to pressure us and were able to get another try of their own.

For the final third we were back into the wind but we continued to improve. A long kick into the wind down line from a penalty was just kept in play by Moderns and a good chase from Joseph put pressure on their defence who fumbled and our support led by Monty regained the ball. From the ensuing ruck Reed saw a gap and charged through to score out wide.

Moderns scored again after we gave them too much possession trying to kick into the wind, but we continued to pressure. Ayden’s strong running gave us momentum, and our rucking improved giving us quick ball out to the right where Oli found some space and his pass put Isaac through on the wing to run round under the posts to score with our most fluent move of the game. The conversion was taken by Owen (who only came on to bring the kicking tee) and was slotted to bring the game to a close.

As with last week, when we moved the ball quickly, we created space and opportunities. We didn’t do this enough today, often taking the ball on individually too far, running out of space or away from support leading to forced passes or lost rucks. Our passing improved as the day went on as did our rucking. The players knew in the end of match huddle where they needed to improve. Mainly tackling, support and body positions in rucks and decision making under pressure. Plenty to work on in the next few training sessions.