Gold Squad Tier 3 Festival at Diss by Alex Baker Woods

Thanks to parents, grandparents and other relatives for supporting our boys on a cold and chilly, if beautifully sunny afternoon in Diss. Thanks too for ensuring that your boys were all there on-time. Thanks Daniel and your parents for coming all the way to Diss to support us. That was much appreciated!

Overview

After a slow start we improved with each game. We finished second out of six teams (we won two, drew one and lost one) and were the highest placed team who had the full complement of players. Only Hadleigh finished above us (two wins and two draws) and they turned up with 10 players! We had a positive try-difference 8 for and 4 against.

Thanks to the players for working hard and being variously prepared to change positions as dictated by the half-game rule and in many cases for willingly playing for opposing teams, and on occasion against team mates. I can’t fault anyone for their willingness to muck in.

What was good:

Fitness - No-one stopped running throughout the four main matches.
Holding onto the ball - Despite the cold we rarely dropped the ball.
We rarely had the ball ripped - Whilst we too often ran into congestion, I was pleased that we generally manages to retain control and possession of the ball.
The scrum (all those who played in the forwards) - You were awesome boys! Jim you would have been proud!
Last ditch defensive tackling - Special mention to Harris and Alex, who both made countless try-saving tackles.
Nobody was out of his depth.

What needs work:

I say ‘frustrated' because I know we can do all of the things listed below much, much, better but left a lot of those skills at home! By game 4 we were playing something approaching our proper rugby. Rucking, ABCs, a proper line (defence and attack), tackling, off-loading.
Organisational issues across the board, especially in the back line.
Playing the game with your head up. Too often simply looking in-field at the breakdown before looking up to realise that our line is outnumbered for instance.
Tackling - or lack of it. We were scared to tackle in the first couple of games. Bullied out of it.We stand off too much making the tackle more difficult (physically and mentally).
Standing back in the ruck. North Walsham out-rucked us well and truly. We need to get the right numbers in: not too many, but even worse too few!
Supporting the runner (especially in the forward line) needs to improve and be more co-ordinated.
Play more plays: both backs and forwards.
We ran into too many blind alleys without choosing to off-load when we should have done.
General aggression. We let the opponents come onto us too often, especially in the first game, rather than playing on the front foot.

Star Men

Everyone played well in patches and did things that they can take away from the game and say “I did this and that well”, however a few players shone a little brighter.

Tacking by example: Alex and Harris
Hooking and control of the scrum: Bill, Matt, George and Sam T.
Seth, Charles and Aston for some intelligent running.

MoM: For leading by example was Alex.

Scores:

(L) Gold 0 - North Walsham 1 - Soft try conceded. Well organised opposition.

(W) Gold 3 (Alex, Seth and Charles)- Wisbech 1 - Confident and more organised display against opposition drawing on opponents to make up a side. Wisbech though beat North Walsham after we had lost to them.

(D) Gold 1 (Aston) - Diss 1 - Diss have stepped up since last year. Good hard game of rugby. Our organisation improved again. Fair result based on play.

(W) Gold 4 (Alex, Matt, Seth and Aston) - Ely 1 - Took four matches to play really well. Again (as with Wisbech) Ely relied on a mix of opponents (including us) to provide players for their team.