Sun 7 Jan 2024, 12:00
Pavs U 13’s V Bingham
Just for Fun.
Paviors welcomed Bingham to Burntstump for our first fixture of the New Year. A raft of injuries and unavailability meant that Pavs could only manage to field 13 ‘fit’ players for today’s game.
A pleasantly bright day with no rain but a definite chill in the air greeted both sides for warm ups, to say the Pavs warm up was underwhelming would be an understatement, dropped balls and eerily quiet did not fill the coaching staff with hope for a strong performance. The focus for the game was on performance as we look to build into next week’s NLD fixture.
A drop from the kick off was eventually recovered and a strong run from Finn got us on the front foot with some quick recycled ball and swift hands leading to the first Pavs try, maybe the lads were a little more focused for the game than they had shown in the warm ups?
Strong running from Lewis and Jack coupled with some good interplay between Evan and Jenson saw us grab another score that was followed by a further score from Tristan who then bagged his second of the game.
Bingham had not had chance to fire any shots of their own up till this point but poor decision making at the rucks and equally poor alignment defensively saw Bingham able to attack down a very narrow channel out wide and some great pace from their winger resulted in a very good score and a shot in the arm for Pavs that they wouldn’t have things all their own way.
Good work at the scrum got us some more go forward ball and with strong running from Alex F and some very classy touches and off loads from Toby resulted in a couple of further scores for Pavs.
Charlie W was able to showcase his running ability with one very nice clean break that deserved better than to be lost and knocked on but with very little in way of support from his teammates the momentum was lost.
It was becoming apparent that Pavs were maybe suffering some ‘white line fever’ as everyone wanted to carry and we began to under subscribe the rucks which ultimately resulted in turnover ball for Bingham who again attacked wide through their pace men and bagged their second try of the game.
The messages at halftime were clear, ‘do your job’ both in attack and defence.
Playing down the slope in the second half we did begin to rediscover our shape a little allowing Alfie to dictate play a little more but we still had too many forwards standing in the 9-10 Chanel that affected our attacking Flow.
When we did resource things correctly and played to our pattern we put Bingham under intense pressure, Charlie T was robbed of a couple of chances to show his pace from some poor passes but put in possibly the best tackle of the game against his opposite number by simply putting his head in the spokes and shutting down a very dangerous attack.
The last quarter of the game saw Bingham throw the kitchen sink at us and a good individual defensive effort from Harrison allowed Max to make some ground, the ball to be recycled well and Pavs put pressure again on the Bingham defence. Final score Pavs 10 Bingham 2. A curates egg of a game, with some very positive attacking play and good individual defensive efforts but also some evidence of the side not having trained or played together since December and our pattern of play very obvious for its absence.
Plank of the day was obviously Finn again after forgetting his post match clothing, however in a shocking turn of events I’ve had to award it to myself. Finn had for Christmas been gifted a GPS tracker ‘like what the pros have’ that I managed to turn off just before the game as I placed it in his shirt 🤦♂️.
Couple of highlights for the day, Harrison Craggs great defensive effort against the Bingham speedster on the wing, Tristan’s grandmother insisting, after his second try, that he leave the field of play to giver her a quick hug before the kick off, Charlie T’s ‘head in the spokes’ tackle and Toby’s offloading play 👍.
Tom Studholme
