2s well beaten by Seghill 1sts

Welcome to the 2s report.

It had been a long time since many of us had visited Seghill. I remember one of my early 1st XV games (89-90 season I reckon) was at Seghill. Captained by Jim Smith and including stalwarts like Herbert, Stoker, Grainger, Wilkinson, Boyd and Brace, I was only selected as Richie Reah wasn't available. We lost 7-6 I think.

I played as a sub much later when Rob Stormont, Tony Irwin and the players Andy Kyle brought in marched back up the leagues from DN 3. We won that.

Those Seghill teams from the past were very forward orientated. The team we played on Saturday was young, organised and played decent 15 man rugby. I was pretty impressed overall by them.

We had a much changed side with our back line cobbled together. Thanks to forwards Liam Evans and James Fraser for playing winger and centre respectively.

The first 30 were fairly even. We had the edge I thought in open play and our rucking and ability to turnover ball was better. However Seghill had a clear edge when they went wide and their set piece play had us under pressure all afternoon.

After being 3-3 for most of 1st half, 2 late tries meant the score at the restart was 15-3.

The second half saw us camped in the Seghill 22 but crucially we were under constant pressure at both set pieces which meant we struggled to create scoring opportunities.

Seghilll scored a number of well constructed long range tries as we were stretched by their pace.

Highlights:

Rucking and tackling was of an excellent quality although the amount we had to do meant we were very 'raggy' in the last 15.

Some of the breaks by Harry Connell, top drawer stuff well done.

Gerrard Harford's try, great speed and footwork.

Despite the changes and difficulties getting organised we turned up and gave them a fairly competitive game I thought.

Lowlights:

Some of the tackles by Harry Connell bottom drawer!

Availability and organisation it's rubbish at the minute gents let's show some commitment to improving it!

After highlighting the need to respect the referee at all times, it's got to go both ways. People give up time with families / partners / work to take a Saturday out to play.

No body minds refs getting decisions wrong but when simply wrong decisions end up leading to reporting and appeals and stuff it's very frustrating.

MoM: Gerard Harford, great try, some great kicks and decent tackles at full back, well done