U16 A v Eltham College

Saturday 7th September 
Result: Felsted 26 – 10 Eltham College

Captain’s Review
Felsted lost the toss and kicked off, running slightly uphill for the first half. Good tackling and rucking from the very first contact resulted quickly in turnover ball. Felsted built the phases, drawing in defenders before sending the ball to the backs, with Josh Wisbey touching down for the opening score. James Lennon converted.

Despite not managing to get clean ball from the restart Felsted collected the ball and attacked from their own half. After a few scrums just into opposition territory the Felsted forwards again gave the backs some good ball, and following good hands Stefan Warner found himself in space, and shot over to score in the corner. An accurate kick from James Lennon made the score 14-0 at half time.

After another sloppy restart Felsted found themselves on the back foot. Discipline around the breakdown began to lapse and the first 10 minutes of the second half belonged largely to Eltham. However, after the Felsted forwards pulled themselves together with some excellent play at the set piece, managing to turn over several opposition scrums and line outs, they gave the backs the ball they needed in space to allow Ashleigh Cox to cross in the corner.

The next score was to Stefan Warner, who beat a tired Eltham defence and touched down half way through the second half. After this, the score was 26-0 and Eltham pulled themselves together, taking advantage of Felsted's tired legs to build the phases and, despite good defence for a sustained period, they scored from close range. At this point Felsted's fitness levels were letting them down, and Eltham managed to score again in the final seconds of the game to make it 26-10.

Coach’s Corner
This was a good start to the season and the score line flattered Eltham; we could have won this game by 40 points if we had been more clinical. I was extremely pleased with the adventurous approach we took to the game, kicking very little and trusting in our handling skills. I thought our defence, particularly our 1-on-1 tackling around the break down, was outstanding and Simon Holme played like a true captain, leading by example.

Naturally there are things that need to improve. In particular our discipline in the contact area; we gave away too many penalties for holding onto the ball, coming into the sides of rucks and not releasing the ball. This can be put down to two factors – a lack of fitness in some players and an element of laziness in others.

I was impressed that there was very little difference when I started to roll the substitutes on during the second half, despite the disruption this caused to the structure of the team.  There is a lot of competition for places across the team, which suggests both our A & B squads could be extremely successful this year.

Man of the Match: Simon Holme