NORTH MIDLANDS CUP SEMI-FINAL

An away game with a vocal crowd of supporters offering plenty of advice to the referee didn’t help; neither did the Blues sluggish start.
Within fifteen minutes of the start, the opposition had got twenty points on the board, two try’s thanks to some weak Blues tackling, a penalty and a dropped goal making up the difference. The Blues now had a mountain to climb and they didn’t make it, although the beginnings of a come back, thanks to a try by Evan Beresford-Smith and a couple of penalties from Josh Watkins, gave some reason for optimism at the half time point. The Blues forwards had the edge over the home side pack and were putting in some excellent drives and at the same time the Blues line-out was also working well.
The restart saw the home side first to score with, again, poor tackling playing a significant part in their third try, and they then added a penalty to their total. The Blues came back with arguably the best play of the game with a superb drive putting Connor Nicholls over with Josh Watkins adding the two extra points, but the home side finished the match off with yet another penalty.

This was no event for the spectators to savour, in fact the use of the whistle to continually bring the game to a halt for minor, or in some cases mystery, infringements, made the game a poor stuttering affair. There are no sour grapes here though, because on the day and given these circumstances, the home side deserved their victory but it’s for certain that they would feel more comfortable had they won a good competitive, free flowing game without the excessive interruptions. By the same token the Blues would be content with the result had they been allowed to play some rugby.

This was not the showcase for U16 rugby that we might reasonably have anticipated.

Garbett & Jones - Honest opinions.