Guildfordians Given A Going Over...

As a coaching team, we watched with pride and anticipation as an outstanding group of young rugby players from the Bracknell and Wokingham area put blood, sweat and tears into a demanding pre-season training program over the summer. The boys came through the program fit, strong and confident, and really looking forward to making a massive statement on the pitch this season and we could not wait to see them in action.

The high level of expectation and confidence in the squad notwithstanding, the fact was that the first fixture of the season against Guildfordians RFC, a Surrey 1 team with an exceptional pedigree, and a team that we had never beaten before. The boys weren’t concerned but from a coach’s perspective, this was a massive banana peel fixture, with a very real possibility of a loss and the evaporation of all the positive energy generated over the summer!

In the weeks leading up to the fixture, the news couldn’t have been worse.

Our first Berkshire county hooker had given up club rugby due to boarding school commitments, and then our second Berkshire county hooker (George Harris) and his tight head prop twin brother (James Harris) withdrew due to a school rugby tour putting a horrible hole in our once-verdant stock of massive front row forwards. Fate, however, was not finished with us and when Big Ferg (Fergus Hill), our county Loosehead and destroyer-in-chief at scrum-time was informed that granny’s 80th in Yorkshire trumped Guildfordians in Surrey, it seemed that things could just not get any worse! But they did, and when, in addition to the aforementioned disasters, our captain and prop Ben Clark injured himself in training and was unable to play, and our scrum half and winger withdrew as they were playing cricket in the county cup final.

It was quite literally a case of study, whisky revolver, in that order and so it was a sense of trepidation that we turned up at Guildfordians RFC on Sunday morning, and having warmed the boys up and watched the B’s lose narrowly to their B’s, the time of reckoning was upon us. We would soon know if all the work that we had done in the summer had been worthwhile or had we sacrificed three months of PS4 for nothing.

As things turned out, they kicked off up a steeply sloped pitch to us, we gathered, carried, rucked, carried, rucked, passed, drew the defender, spun it wide and scored. This process was repeated several times with slight variations on the theme and by half-time we were 29-0 up. We knew the game was won but we were now playing up a pretty steep slope and we had seriously annoyed the opposition, and the in cases the ref, who was pretty good on the whole to be fair, and we had our work cut out to stop them attacking down the slope.

They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us in the second 30 but were only able to secure ten points for their efforts giving us a fantastic 29-10 victory deep in the heart of Surrey rugby but it was not so much that we won, but how we won that was so significant as, despite the quality of the opposition and the disruptions to our team in the weeks leading up the match, we put in a complete performance at every level.

The set pieces were very strong and both our scrum and lineout dominated throughout despite our front row consisting of our regular starting Openside at Hooker and our Blindside flanker at Loosehead prop. It was a real treat to see Kane O'Leary on the rampage ball in hand with Number 1 on his back, stepping their fullback to score a magnificent solo try! We were dominant at the breakdown and our rucking was precise and powerful. We were also very good at dominating the space over the ball and particular credit to Matt van Heerde at Openside for some cracking work at the break down.

Our backs were simply breath-taking in their audaciousness and enterprise. Running lines both ball in hand and in support were text-book and the decision making was outstanding for a first up outing. The pace and skill on display was a treat for the spectators and for the coaches, a validation of all the hard work and investment over the summer.

In the second half, our defence was stubborn and committed and defending against the slope really brought out the true grit in our team’s character as wave after wave of Guildfordians came at us down the hill only to be stopped short of the line.

In summary, it was wonderful victory on many levels and has left us well set-up for a cracking season in 2014/15.

Kind regards,
Andy