HOW DID WE LOSE?

Second trip to Sedgefield in a few months. Team as selected with new boy Liam Owens in the 2nd row, with Thomas Skidmore making his league debut at hooker and good to see Robbie Greenwell back at No 8.

Quite a pleasant day and after watching the ladies open day at the club time for a swift pint watching the cricket at Sedgefield before we wandered over to their rugby pitch which is quite compact and known as the ‘wok’!

We started off well and on the attack with Jack Garrett racing away for a try after a few minutes. 5-0 to us.

We continued on the attack with a lot of possession but unfortunately threw too many wild passes out instead of letting the ball and numbers do the work. The result was missed opportunities.

Sedgefield got a couple of attacks together and scored and converted to make it 5-7. We continued to dominate but the same as said earlier we did not take advantage of the territory and possession. We had a few penalties which we kicked down the line for good attacking line outs but we struggled to win our own ball. So another penalty came and skipper Ross Craig took the three points to make it 8-7 to us.

We continued to have good possession and just before half time a promising attack turned into an interception after their guy read an inside pass and they scored from 60 meters and converted to make it 8-14 at half time.

Second half pretty much the same. We did win some line outs but we played it straight to Ross at 9 and Sedgefield were onto it pretty quick with Ross under pressure. Why didn’t we catch & drive on a few occasions?

We had our fair share of possession and Charlie Green scored in the corner 13-14. Nathan Turner could have had two or three tries as he was on the outside in space on the overlap but three times the inside man(different each time) took it on himself but didn’t get anywhere. I would have backed Nathan to score on at least two of those occasions! By this time the game should have been out of sight but if you don’t score you bet the opposition will and sure enough they did 13-19.

So we had four minutes left and needed a converted score and Adam Ridley was on hand to score on the right. 18-19 to them. Ross stepped up for the kick but the ball fell over. They rushed up but the ref sent them back. Ross tried again. A little rushed I thought and didn’t quite make it. We had another go from the kick off but couldn’t make it. So we lost 18-19. One league point.

So how did we lose was the question? Well by not using the considerable amount of possession we had and rushed things too many times. We did ok in the scrums but the line outs were poor. We had a big tall lad in Liam mainly at the front but too many times we threw it long and they had a prop standing at the back who probably took about six line out catches!

So should we have won? Yes. Did we deserve to win? No!

So not the best start or the start the lads wanted but there is plenty of promise there but we must get the basics right and not try to be too fancy when there is no need. Wallsend at home next week. So good luck lads. I won’t be there as away on holidays so if someone could do reports for the next two Saturdays please?