Fixture

A late rearranged fixture meant a welcome home game for the U16s this weekend. The last 3 games had seen a slow start from Chepstow, gifting early leads to the opposition before clawing themselves back into the game. This was discussed prior to kick-off with the boys resolving to start quickly and take the initiative.

We did start a bit brighter than recently but Blackwood hadn’t travelled to make up the numbers and some early exchanges of attack and defence for both sides saw Blackwood take an early lead with the opening try, duly converted. Their backline looked dangerous with some strong runners, Chepstow were going to need to be at their best today. The boys regrouped and upped their workrate with Dan, Jayden and Freddie all working hard around the fringes of the breakdown and, as usual, Jake Summers hitting just about every ruck to disrupt opposition ball whilst Rhys did most of the tackling. This greater commitment from the forwards enabled Chepstow to show what they could do with the ball. Edwin provided his usual slick service to set Thomas out of the traps. This week Thomas was up against a very strong and quick defensive opposite number and he needed to be at his best to distribute and unleash Ieuan Rose and Keegan. After several waves of attack, Chepstow finally breached the defence with Keegan scoring and slotting a great conversion from out wide to tie the scores.

More Chepstow pressure followed with Tom Wacey, Hugh and Jake all getting into the game, tackling, hitting rucks and supporting the attacks. The main threat came from Harry Taylor, full of energy as usual and Will Ruck who was very physical with ball in hand. Lewis Bedford, fresh off the plane from Riyadh, was introduced along with Joe Beard and Callum. All 3 made a good impact. Thomas keeping the defence thinking by switching tactics from distribution to his now trademark dummy and straighten to run deep into opposition territory. More sustained pressure allowed Spencer to barrel over in the corner. The difficult conversion was missed.

Blackwood regrouped and new they had more to give. They finally used the slope to good advantage to gain a foothold in Chepstow’s half and scored a deserved unconverted try just before half-time – score 12-12 and game on. The boys discussed upping the workrate and defensive organisation at half-time as a number of times our defenders had moved in to tackle a player someone else had covered, thereby leaving an overlap -they were the only 2 issues. Importantly, Chepstow also now had the slope.

Early pressure resulted in a penalty on the 22m line, only just to the side of the posts. After much debate, the boys sensibly decided that an easy 3 points to get back into the lead would be quite a good idea! Keegan didn’t disappoint and slotted coolly home, 15-12.

A good kick return from the ever industrious Angus, sparked another attack and this time the backline worked an excellent switch with Thomas and Ieuan combing to outfox the defensive line and Callum cut his usual strong straight run to burst through the defence. Somehow he crossed the line but was too slow putting the ball down and got held up, thankfully Harry Taylor had the presence of mind to react and touchdown to claim the glory, 22-12 with the successful conversion.

Blackwood responded again and were kicking more and more. Keegan worked really hard at fullback and made a huge impact, ensuring there was no easy outlet for the visitors. He ran and kicked effectively and kept the ball in the right half of the field.  Blackwood attacks were stifled with Tom Wacey and Hugh tackling particularly well, Joe B also showed a big step up from the previous weeks. With some injuries, Freddie admirably agreed to move to prop and did very well to maintain the scrum set piece whilst Lewis and Rhys both did well at the lineout. The theme of the day had been trying to play too much rugby with lots of high risk offloads resulting in knock-ons or turnovers and so it continued into the 2^nd half. When we finally showed some much needed composure, Will scored the decisive try to stretch the lead to a seemingly comfortable 29-12 but, as usual things weren’t that straight forward as Blackwood hit back with one of their speedsters outpacing our cover defence to add some spice to the last 10 minutes. Good energy and commitment from the boys in the last 10 minutes kept the visitors at bay and the final whistle went, 29-17.

Things to be pleased about

• Territorial game management ensured we played most of the rugby in the correct part of the field
• The boys found the right gears when they needed them most
• We won…..

Things to work on

• We are brilliant one minute and asleep the next, we must focus for the whole game
• Decision making around the tackle area as we looked to do too much to speed the game up, composure, composure, composure……
• Leadership, we need the boys to step up and lead others through the periods where we are not at our best

On we go………