It was touch & go whether this fixture would take place as we were down to bare bones with injuries to key players & the loss of our Fijian contingent to a much more important fixture in Afghanistan. However, as our last 2 Canterbury fixtures were cancelled, once by us, we felt that all efforts should be made to fulfill our commitment. We confirmed on Thursday hoping that as the 2nd XV hadn't played for 4 weeks, we might be able to borrow some of their players, bearing in mind that the Adventurers is a Development Team which is supposed to be grooming aspiring young players for the step up to senior rugby & thinking that those players on the periphery of the 1st/2nd team squad might have been glad of a run out against good quality opposition. Saturday morning arrived and 1 member of the2nd team squad, Fermin, turned up. Coach Mark Fender had also brought his boots, so with a bare squad of 17 players, off we went to Well Hall.
Cambridge lost the toss & played up the slope. After 3 minutes Cambridge lost the ball in a ruck, Blackheath moved the ball quickly to their fast man on the right wing & would have scored but for two last ditch tackles, first from Tony at full back then from makeshift No 8 Tom which caused a Blackheath knock-on. Cambridge lost their scrum, & in doing so gave away the first points 7-0.
I have never been involved in a match where shoulders have dropped so early in the game & hope never to do so again. Blackheath possess a very good back line playing the sort of fast flowing, positive rugby that Cambridge aspire to & which members of the 2nd XV might have benefited from playing against. They took full advantage of our short-comings, mainly a failure of the Cambridge drift defence, a back row which was always late to the ball, which resulted in loss of the ball time & time again in promising positions due to isolation of the ball carrier, & a kicker who failed to find touch from set pieces on numerous occassions, combined with our wide men, who never gave up, being asked to deal with 2 or even 3 man overlaps. Young Paul on the right wing was hoarse by the end of the match from calling numbers & being ignored by a ball watching defence.
If I gave a ball by ball account of this one-sided match, the report would be 3 pages long & very repetitive. Suffice it to say that Blackheath took full advantage of our weaknesses, especially using their fast right wing, and fullback to good effect, & ran out 91-10 winners.
Some positive points did come from the match. Fermin, our guest,scored our only try of the match when he cleverly stepped inside two covering defenders to score under the posts.At least another 6 of the squad played their hearts out for the team. Others were left wanting in the determination & skill stakes, especially when we were 42-7 down at half time, & needed to examine what they wanted to get from the game. Guys that have been out of the game for some time or playing at a lower level especially, need to take advantage of the extra training sessions on Tuesdays which will concentrate on individual development. Thursdays will then be reserved for team development. Communication between the different squads also needs to be better developed.
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