"Attitude is contagious is yours worth catching?"

Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through. Boys get to know who they can depend upon and indeed see others in difficult situations and go to their aid. We don’t leave anyone exposed or on their own at Anselms and the boys will take that attitude into their adult lives and be better people for it. Today was a classic example of this.
Sandbach are always a great team and their coaches and spectators under the positive leadership of Andy B were great value. In the first half they led 5:19 mostly cos they won all the ball on the ground – rugby is tricky when you don’t have the pill. That was no accident, good drills have led to great body angles and the Saints who usually get away with arriving in 1 or 2’s got out muscled and had to live off scraps.
Green 13 crashed over early after a long period of pressure on Saints lines. Nice kick from Luke and the Saints coaches were worried. Nothing from the rucks (even when we took the ball in) – 50/50ish in the maul and no scrum possession. We were not at the races in the front 8 for important parts of the game and the result flattered us at the end.
Adam and George worked hard containing the Green centres, we have talked alot about these boys going fwd this season; today then nailed everything that ran at them – respect gents. Alex our resident human dynamo,got a great solo effort but Sean was unlucky with a great effort from touch. 5:7 didnt reflect the possession but we have all played in matches where you have won despite having the ball most of the time...its how you use it!
Green however were wise with their dominance and their 18 who had a great all round game, popped into space – beat a couple of defenders – try but no extras. Now we found out what the Saints were made of. Technically they let themselves down with silly hands in the ruck and coming round the fringes, and playing the ball when off your feet – many of the lads are new to the game and these technical issues take a while – the rest of you know better – so knock it off or we will be hitting the pressup challenge again!!!. Sir asked, told and then penalised them, it was fair and reasonable and you have to play to the laws lads. The main reason they were having to resort to the offside’s etc was Green pressure was high and their technique good. Saints you need to either get to the ball quicker or id they have won it and go into the defensive formats we practice...simply using your hands isn’t what we teach so stop it NOW!
Sport gives players an opportunity to know and test themselves – in a way that modern society has forgotten is what growing up is about. Winning is as overrated as the latest Iphone thingy- character, improvement and performance is the only game in town. If you do the latter things well, the former tends to happen most of the time anyway.
Just before half time green full back took a great line off multiple phases of Green pressure in Saints 22. Nice extras to a classy kick from Luke and that was 5:19. To be honest Saints could have been down by 40 points but that had worked hard. Alex was unlucky not to get a 2nd but an amazing hit from Green fullback was prob one of the tackles of the season. Giving away 2 stone and as many feet the Green lad put body and soul into a technically immaculate hit (if hed got it wrong it would have hurt even more). He had to have 5 mins to recover, getting a head on with the Saints No8 is hard enough but when hes at full pace and you are the last man it takes courage and self belief. Respect was given by both players, teams, coaches and supporters and the game marched on....the Green fullback looked a little dazed but was seen smiling and eating chips later so no harm done! Andy B the Sandbach coach made a note to equip his full back with a machine gun and body armour for the second half just in case Alex got up to speed again, the Green fullback told his back row to get back and help him out!!!

Sport tests people, both on and off the pitch. We all need to show good examples to each other and often when I write these notes after games it to celebrate stuff going well. Today however Id like to celebrate a hard shift by our front row, who got a dramatic example in the art of the scrum, first time for a couple of seasons. It took alot of character for the Matts and Andy to front up today, by the end they were exhausted and bruised in a way only people who have gone into the meat grinder of a scrum front row will ever understand (ask John Kelly over a pint sometime...but don’t let the mums hear) but now know what the standard is and can work hard in training to move forward. You never really learn alot when you are ontop – its about dominating and controlling sets of play. You learn most when you are being dominated – you go away and work hard to make sure it never happens again. The next time you meet the same guys you are better and turn things around – thats progress and development at its best.
Despite finding possession hard to come by the Saints did make good progress in the second half and technically won that game within a game 5:0. Sandbach pressured our line and were unlucky through great defending and a little of lady lucks fine intervention not to score one or two tries throughout the second period.
Saints dug deep and with a few players rotating and replacing we made yards and put Sandbach under pressure. Green were as good under pressure as when they were giving it and it took a great team effort with George getting quick turnover ball, Sean moving it wide and Alex (who else) taking the wide space and going under the posts. Sean nailed a nice conversion to highlight his great all round performance
Mike and Daniel played well on the left win counter attacking and tackling well, and Mike StJohn played well on the right in much the same war. Mike K had a difficult 1st half with slow ball and a good defensive green backline but set the Saints going fwd in the 2nd half. Alex Y had another standout game at full back – big, physical and with a good eye for the ball, well impressed were the coaches.
Floyd, Gio and Tom S put in a hard shift against a much bigger pack and in the end got some ball when we needed it most. Matty and Pater shared a backrow game where with Sam O they never got to the breakdown in numbers or with the right technique – something to work on in the coming weeks
Its not that our fwds played badly, in recent games they have played worse and still won 50+ of the ball, today they got out gunned by a better set of fwds and we will use this lesion well.
Sport gives us a common ethos and we were proud to play with Sandbach today under the banner of rugby, friendship and sportsmanship. Its was hard and at times brutal but never did it go beyond the limits of good hard rugby. It takes both teams to have such a game and we are grateful to Sandbach for the opportunity.
Many thanks to Sandbach for providing the ref - Richard for a great example of preventive and coaching ref’ing spot on for this type of fixture, after both the Saints refs had to back down owing to age and self inflicted injury...silly boys!