2nd XV v Novos

We expected our game against Novos 3rd team to be difficult. We had beaten them late in December 2015, but this result was achieved with a very competitive team that included a number of guys who have subsuquently have not been available or went on to cement 1st team squad places (JamieSword, Scullly, Heff).

The team we had out for the match had a good number of regular 2s players although injuries / availabilities / promotion to 1s meant that a number were also missing (Aaron, Anth, Dan, Jamie Sword)

Anyway the coach was happy with selection and confident.

Unfortunately from the start our game felt 'flat'.

The exception to this was Harry Connell who began with a blistering start and a great 40 metre break. This ended with him injurying his ankle again and taking no further part in the game unfortunately.

We came close in terms of the score on a number of occasions but it never felt like we gelled as a team and I always felt that Novos had another gear if required.

This was best epitomised by their inside centre who impressively rampaged to score a hat-trick.

We put together some decent little patches and scored 3 tries ourselves. A particularly good try came from Dom Arkley off an attacking line created by Dom Younger.

Our forward play however lacked its usual intensity and we suffered for it.

Equally our fly half put in a career ending performance in that position (he's promised that all future aspirations to be creative have ended!) which meant our back line never got going.

Upwards and onwards, some difficult decisions with selection for the big match next week but in some ways a good 'wake up call' for the 2s.

MoM: Chris Geehan, some good carries and positive intent (apart from 1 daft argument with the ref) I was also impressed at the number of high balls he fielded at fullback. I had no idea what he was doing there or where Dom Arkley was but he was good at it all the same!