Season 2014-15 kicks off...

Match report from Caldonian Thebans v Queensferry, Saturday 6 September 2014

Howdy lads.

It is fair to say that Saturday’s game did not go as we planned. We lost our game structure, we let scores past us and we got frustrated. However, as Jim said at the end, it was a bad match. There were a number of calls against us which restricted the amount of ball time we had and limited our chances of getting scores. We played well, just lost our heads and sadly let the opposition get on top of us.

However, let's not this game get to us. We are all part of the Thebans to play rugby. And we know what we are doing. We can play very well. So when things start to fall apart we need to make sure that it does not affect us and our play. When we are enjoying the game we play at our best. We need to keep focused on that, not on mistakes on scores against us. We are a team and we need to make sure we work together. I know that I let the game get to me and lost my focus. It affected my play and my ability to help us take control.

This was only the first game of the season though, and we were playing against a professional side. We had new players and a few playing out of position. We dealt we with what we were presented with well and there was some great skill demonstrated. Let’s learn from this game and work on building our defensive structure, gelling as a team, getting those tackles in low and keeping focused on the game.

Things to think about - the flat defensive line and how we can make sure the opposition are not breaking through; the two-pronged attacking structure that Jim has talked about; not panicking when we have the ball in hand.

Saturday did see us welcome three new players to their first Thebans game - Jake, Matt and Odin. Congratulations! It is great to have you playing with us. I hope this is the first of many games to come. It was also great to see so many of you back from last season. A big well done to John on his great score, and to Jack on Man of the Match.

I am not going to go into the fine details of the game in a full report. We all know how it went down. Let’s use it as a learning curve and work towards developing the skills we have.

It was great to be back on the field with you all, and I look forward to plenty more (higher scoring!) games ahead

Neil Fox
Team Captain