Veseyans II 80 - 7 Aston Old Edwardians II

The first Merit League fixture of the season was always set to be a tough one for Aston. Looking at the website for Veseyans before the game would have found a number of familiar faces in the senior squad. Strangely they stayed on the website as none of the recent departures were there to face us, and only one (according to our sources) played in the Veseyans 1s fixture away.

The whys and wherefores of who has left and why has been raked over more often than some plots in Kew Gardens and this isn’t the place for it. It’s a new beginning for Aston this season, with new faces (and some old ones too), new positions and all new optimism.

The game started in much that way. A slow rumble from the Aston side at the kick off led to an almost instantaneous score for Veseyans. Not a great start.
Max, in the warm up, taught a move we’d learned in training to those who hadn’t made it.
We ran through it a couple of times and that was that, tucked in the brain for a hopeful penalty.
Well, three minutes or less after the Veseyans score Aston were on the score sheet.
Craig Williams ran into the red zone and very fast ball from James “Mozza” Morris found Pete Carroll in some space. With more work to do than he’d admit he smashed through the tackle and dotted down for the Aston try. A tough nut of a conversion later and Mozza had got some well-deserved points and we were in the lead. 7-5 Aston.
Maybe Max should take up teaching?

The lead didn’t last long and neither did the relatively small gap between them.
To say we kept track of the scores that were run in or where they happened would be something of lie.
The lack of attention for that part of the game was not carried over into the game play however.
To get the negatives out of the way early we missed far too many first up tackles and we were painfully slow to the break down. We seemed to suffer from spells of complete disorganisation and much of the game was headless. We threw away our experience and rushed for the ball like we were just starting in the minis at Sunnybank. A much better drilled side faced us, with no small skill either, and we were undone.

Being Aston however we fought and we fought hard.

The usual suspects were as vocal as ever but they were joined by new names too. I remember when Levi Myers started in the 4th team and he barely said anything to anybody. He was almost surgically attached to his headphones and arrived just as we started and left as soon as we finished.
His lightening pace was all we knew of him.
Sometime over the summer he’s found his voice and it’s been well rested as he was possibly the most vocal player on the pitch. When lining up with Craig Williams and Joe Carroll that’s a pretty hard ask.
He ripped into players that weren’t pulling the defensive line and screamed for the ball at every opportunity. Don’t get me wrong here though, he wasn’t just hot air. He made some excellent decisions, chased his kicks like a hungry greyhound and he deserved much better from the game.

Two more players that deserved better from the score line have already had a mention and they are Mozza and Craig Williams.
They fought hard for Aston all game but seemed to click more and more as the game wore on and the result looked lost. Craig’s belligerence led to not one but two pretty banged up shoulders and he hit more rucks than even his own account of his performance would suggest.
Mozza marshalled the pack well and directed players in the backline. His understanding with a more established fly half will help him out immensely but he was definitely a stand out player for AOE.

Arguments in the club house varied on how many points we shipped and how many tries sailed passed us, and at times it felt like a hell of a lot. Veseyans haven’t posted the score on their website yet but when they do as long as they remember our 7 I’m fairly sure they’ll get it more right than we did at the bar.
There was no doom and despair though and nor should there be.
We lack a little bit of basic understanding with each other in defence and some more get up and go around the park and the result would have been wholly different. We are far from well drilled and we all know how far that can carry a team with little ability. We have more than enough ability so if we organise we can really take things forward.
Luckily it’s a fix we all know.
We train together and we’ll win together.
To have another dig at Craig’s motoring mouth he’s been on at people to get to training for the best part of three years. Perhaps we turn up and shut him up?
Please?!