Sun 12 Nov 2023, 11:00
Mansfield U13s V Paviors U13s NLD Round 1
A first for the side today in the first round of the NLD competition and the start of our journey into competitive rugby was away at local rivals Mansfield RFC on Rememberance Sunday. A fiercely competitive game was expected and so it proved to be.
Training in the week was positive, with the focus on ruck speed and defensive pressure.
A sense of excitement for the challenge was evident in the changing rooms and during warm ups (which appeared to go well).
Mansfield organised a well observed minutes silence at 11:00am, it was a nice to be able to observe this with the broader rugby family with Newark also having a side present.
Mansfield elected to play up the slope in the first half and got off to a good start, scoring early through one of their big runners. Pavs regrouped and immediately put Mansfield under pressure from the kick off and continued to keep applying this pressure through the rest of the first half with strong work from the front row of Alex S, Craggsy and Alex F in both attack and defence.
Our much improved rucking allowed for quicker ball with Charlie W distributing quickly to his backs allowing Harry G (playing with a bad ankle)to provide good ball for Jack and Toby to run on to allowing them to put Jenson into space and make inroads down his wing.
We managed to mix our play nicely using the forwards to hit up to recycle with Max and Tristan to the fore, before releasing our backs with Evan and Oscar both prominent in attack and defence.
Mansfield’s attacks in the first half were contained through good line speed, strong tackling and some good jackling work by Finn, H and Alfie.
The halftime whistle ended what in my opinion was our most consistent half of rugby this side has put together, the focus at halftime was on maintaining the same momentum and to ensure we kept the pressure on Mansfield, playing up the slope this would be a far from easy task.
Almost immediately from the kick off Mansfield began to attack with renewed vigour with their big strike runners putting us under immense pressure, timely interventions from Joe and Charlie T slowed some Mansfield attacks but as our fitness began to be tested our line speed began to drop off alongside our effectiveness at the ruck and this allowed Mansfield to really build on their momentum and take the lead.
Buoyed by the shift in momentum Mansfield began to force errors from Pavs and we appeared to become a little desperate as we tried to regain control of the game, good runs from Charlie W, Evan, Tristan, Max, Jack and Finn came to nothing as we forced passes or made incorrect decisions.
We continued to apply ourselves and did manage to score again but at crucial times we were a little guilty of poor decision making, this will come with experience as on the whole we have quite an in-experienced side.
A disappointing result but overall a very positive performance that we will learn from, we need to continue to apply ourselves at training (keep learning) and keep working on our fitness to ensure that even when we have to play uphill in the second half we can keep the same intensity and clear heads that we showed in the ‘that’ first half.
