Effingham Heartbreak.

A wet soggy day in Croydon saw us put our unbeaten Waterfall Cup run to the test against a good Effingham and Leatherhead side who had had a similar set of results to us bar a loss to last week’s opponents Guildfordians. It proved to be another really close encounter but this time we suffered the agony of a last minute defeat to dash our hopes of topping the group.

We started with 14 per side as E&L were unable to raise a full side but were on top of the early exchanges without making a breakthrough, despite losing Micah early to a knee problem. The ball was very slippery and we probably tried too over-complicate things rather than keep passes short and simple but E&L did defend well and stop us going round the side. The game evened out but we defended well – our line speed and first tackle was much improved – and after withstanding some pressure on our own line we broke away and Judah ran in an excellent try with the last play of the first half which George converted for a 7-0 halftime lead.

Judah repeated the trick at the start of the second half again converted by George to put us 14-0 in front and hopeful of another win. But E&L came back with a close range try of their own to pull the score back to 14-7 and all to play for. We then suffered a double blow with the loss of Sam to concussion and Judah to sickness and struggled to reorganise quickly and another but another close range try brought the scores back to 14-12. We continued to work hard in difficult conditions and had a chance near the posts to score again but we lost a bit of shape and discipline to lose the ball and after they moved the ball down the field, a high tackle gave them a chance to slot over a penalty with the last kick of the game which they did for a narrow 15-14 loss. An agonising loss after working so hard against good opponents but it was an excellent well-contested game played in a pretty good spirit.

Positives

• Line speed and first tackles were much improved – they struggled to make headway through the middle and relied more on kicks over the top – no-one really missed their tackles and everybody put their bodies on the line – or in the mud!
• Given we had a number of changes – often forced at short notice - we matched them up front in scrums and rucks
• Distribution was much quicker this week – Jude had more protection and was getting the ball away quickly.

Areas for Development

• We must keep our discipline and concentration – I know we had lost a number of players for various reasons but we lost shape and focus towards the end and there was some backchat to the referee – not acceptable even if you don’t like the decisions
• Decision-making was not always good – the ball was wet and on occasions we were trying to throw it around like Fiji at the Hong Kong Sevens and unsurprisingly it went to ground. Remember rugby is a game of possession and we can’t give it away as cheaply as we sometimes did.

It was obviously disappointing to lose in the manner we did in a game we could well have won but the boys worked really well and need to keep learning from results like this. It was after all just a last minute kick which decided this one. A special thanks to the parents for turning out to support us in pretty awful weather and hope your washing machines survive the mud!