Under 15s Review

After a difficult few weeks in October, Ionians have since put together a good run of performances and wins since. Again it was a small squad of 16 that ventured to South Yorkshire for our third away game in a row (hopefully everyone can still remember the way to Brantingham Park next week!). This included the welcome return of 3 players after a periods of injuries and representative rugby, especially welcome as 4 of the team that did so well last week in the Plate were missing.

Scorers
Tries - Ben Carlile, Matt Rosso, Robson Jones, Fergus Croston
Cons - Ifan Downey (2), Luke Adams

Sporting Cliche of the Day
It was a game of two halves
I'm assuming the delayed kick off confused the well tuned body clocks of the team, who are clearly used to stop playing around noon each week, otherwise how else can you explain the difference between the free-flowing rugby of the first half with the scrum-fest of the second half?
Maybe our lack of replacements on a heavy pitch didn't help, so I'm looking forward to having a few more players becoming available in the coming weeks.

But let's focus on the first half - it was really good and should set the benchmark for how this team should play.

Things Coaches Love Award
Whilst we're on a good run, there is still plenty to work on in training. We can't allow ourselves to become complacent.

Moment of the Day
Two moments in competition for this award today. The line-break, the support runner and the perfectly executed 2 v 1 (you see there is a reason we practice these over and over again), but the winner for me is the Simon Zebo -like flick (look it up on YouTube) by Robson Jones on his way to scoring in the corner. Skills!

Man of the Match
At half time there 15 candidates for the award, at the end there was a bit of a feeling among the management that no-one deserved it!
However, on reflection it was a good win against a good team and based on the first half, for strong, direct running, powerful rucking and a excellently finished try, this week's MotM is Matt Rosso. We won't talk about his Sonny Bill Williams style off-load. Will we?