4th Game Summery
Eric Bryan
Triad 31 Asheville 5
What a complete differences from the game with Belmont you would of thought that the lads had been around town on the beer. We were slow not effective in the rucks look like we had lead in our boots communication seemed not to be there. It seemed it was we went out there and said, “Let’s see what Triad can do and we will try and combat their attack." but we did not even do that.
There were a few goods point but not enough to give us points on the board. Lines outs where general good apart from making cardinal sin of try to bat the ball back to scrum half on a 5m form the try line putting the scrumhalf under press to kick when he was not ready to pass it back to full back who was under pressure straight away with Triad forward 's coming thought the line, which we did nothing about.
Scrumming was OK again we did not get ball back quick enough getting it held up in second row and sometimes coming back to front row. Even thou triad pack out weight us by some 300lbs we could hold them our scrumming was slow and in the mauls we were happy to hold on to the ball instead of driving forward so we could of at least got the scrum down
The ref was no help ether allow triad to kill the ball hold on to the ball in rucks also blow early in mauls especially when we were just about to pass the ball out but mainly it was that lack of aggression and fight for the ball. Our back line was flat wasn't quick enough up on triads back line allowing them to run, We began to bunch like a shoal of fish when ball was tied up no one was looking what the opposition was doing we did even line up against their opposite number or shut their lanes down.
We started to put some effort in the second half but not fully until the last twenty minutes but by then we where flagging people where walking rather than running in all not a very good game of rugby a game where we should have been in command and dictate the pace of the game instead letting triad do what they wanted to do. This was a team the Asheville should of beat but instead we let triad rule especially when they were arguing with ref losing their cool but we argued almost ourselves yet again people instead of concentrating on the game at hand try to encourage players to play better very disappoint especially when you look at the quality and the number of players that showed up (20 players) which was good, gave the opportunity to be able mix people around which happened in the second half due to injuries and tiredness and not fit
The man of match was Brain Lawlor he got stuck in made some good breaks from 8 man and score our only try for a break over a 40m run with no support, great try Brain.
We had three good chance of scoring tries which we wasted 65m run and kick which we received a penalty but we could not score, second was a drive of the line but ref could not see the ball and gave us a 5m scrum again we could not capitalize on it, when we had a penalty 5m from the try line which we could not cross thinking Big Pete was going to break there line if he had support behind him we would have scored, instead we waited until tackled and he went to ground short of the try line but because their numbers where there we were unable to retrieve the ball quickly enough, which they won and cleared there line.
A very disappointing game rugby it which I expected more form Asheville players and their abilities to take the game to triad and kick their back side but we got the kicking. Let’s hope this just a temporary setback and next time we play them at home we can show them who is the better team if not you might as well hang your boots up and call it a day