Missing 5 or 6 players at 9am sunday morning and after knocking doors to scratch together a team of 14 ( 1st time for a couple of these boys to wear the blue and amber shirt this season) and we went up to a very strong, well prepared aberdare team. The 1st 10 minutes of the 1st half was a total drumming for the 13s, there was no commitment to to tackling nor the ruck area and aberdare 3 tries up were looking at finishing the 13s off without going to 2 half. But, credit to the boys, they showed a change of attitude and had a go at the snakes ! Unlucky not to get a try in the remaining 15 minutes of the half at least the boys stood up and gave the aberdare boys a bit of competition. 3 tries down at half time was, under the circumstances not too bad , but the boys knew there were another 25 minutes of the same off aberdare, the boys played for about 10 minutes at the beginning of second half and then aberdare backs just totally gave the 13s a lesson in running rugby, it was spectacular stuff ! To be fair, the 13's kept trying ,but were totally outgunned in the end. They lasted the whole of the 2nd half and the game finished as it started - with aberdare in total control.Our defensive game over particulary the 2nd half of the season has been pretty tight, but the tackling wasnt very committed, we ran as individuals when we had the ball, and even the restarts were watched and not competed, so it wasnt by any means a good performance by the team. The easiest thing to do with this fixture would have been to cancel it and stay in bed, but, for the boys who train every week, they want to play rugby, so we played it , hopefully learnt from it and we will welcome aberdare down to us next season and see if we can represent ourselves a bit stronger.
For the kids and parents who turned up, and had a tuning on a soaking wet ,cold aberdare morning I salute you ! Thanks team.