Not an afternoon anyone, on our side, was happy about, as Steve Mole said afterwards "everyone should have a word with themselves.
The forwards played well enough, close up tackling was good, the scrum was just about ours.
Our early down fall was giving away penalties, the first inside five minutes, then they missed one and on twelve minutes got their second. In all this we only got in to their half once having so little of the ball. Next one of their players scooted over the line from a close in scrum but the referee called him back. We defended their next attack well only to give away another penalty. 0-9.
For once we got the ball in hand with Phil Greenside making a good run down the side line and close in to their line.
With ten minutes to go in the half they got their first try, weak tackling allowed them to go in and under the crossbar. An easy conversion and they were 0-16 up.
From the restart we attacked, gained a penalty that was put over by Mark.
3-16 at the break.
Eight minutes after the restart yet another penalty sailed over the cross bar and with it a yellow card for Mike Hunt. 3-19.
From then on we defended well a number of attacks on our line. We put in few attacks largely because poor handling in the backs kept on loosing us possession.
On thirty minutes a period of slack play, we defended a scum well but on the next one they ran in a try when their no8 went over. We had had the ball five meters out in a ruck but failed to defend it or use it, they counter rucked, stole the ball and over went their no8 for a seven pointer.3-26.
A short while later from the restart another close in scrum in our line and they again waltzed in just about unopposed. 3-33.
With only a couple of minutes to go we attacked and won a line out on their line, the ball was won, dropped to Shaun Pearson who, despite a painfully toe so he told me afterwards, did one of his trade mark strong and straight runs and over the line. Symsie put over a difficult conversion from the side line.
10-33.
That was just about that. It was as if no one really wanted to be there. As someone said afterwards, if we had had the backs we might have won. It was not that we did not have the skills in the backs we were just unable to make use of them. The forwards did their job well enough and indeed Shaun saved us from total embarrassment.