New Players Encouraged to Come Out

Greenville Griffins VS Atlanta Renegades B

Well what a lovely day it was for Rugby Saturday.  It started out a nice cool 61 degrees and the lovely rain appeared for the second half.  It was the first game of the Griffins season and there was a good sprinkling of new blood in the line-up.  We ended up running 4 quarters and were allowed to use rolling subs which allowed us to get a lot of the new guys some good gametime and some great experience.  We had a squad of 22 out there Saturday with 8 guys donning the Griffins jersey for the first time.
The game started out solid.  Greenville took the kickoff and rucked it down the field which led to a lineout to the Griffins in the Renegades half.  The lineout was solid all day and a great take my captain of the Day Joel Hedge led to a great driving maul down the field.  The move eventually broke down but the lineout maul was a hallmark of some excellent play by the griffins Saturday.  The first quarter was really about both sides getting their bearings.  The Griffins rucked excellently but were guilty of leaving their feet at ruck time and some stray hands in the ruck which led to the first points of the day to the Renegades inthe form of a penalty.  The conditions made for some sloppy ball at times and did not allow for a very expansive game.  The Renegades pressured and we were guilty of being sucked in defending around the ball which allowed their fast winger to get some space out wide which he took to the line fo ra Renegades try.  That
ended the first quarter.  The 2nd quarter we kept the pressure on.  We were unfortunate a couple of time to lose the ball by running too high into contact or not protecting the ball and losing it forward in the tackle.  A couple of plays close to the line were snuffed out by sloppy ball retention.  A 5 yard defensive scrum to the Renegades yielded an excellent try to scrumhalf Tim Moot.  The Griffins scrum was solid all day even with using 7 different players in the front row.  The Griffins pressure in the scrum yielded several good turnover balls over the day.  The Renegdaes managed to tack on a couple of more penalties and another try to take the lead at the half.
The 2nd half we continued to play some good close quarter rugby.  Our center combination of Florian and Tal continued to try and punch it up the middle and try and create some gaps.  Unfortunately the conditions did not favor an expansive game so our wingers on the day (Freddie, Titus, Jimmy and Jason) saw very little ball out wide.  As we started to get tired our tackling started to fall off and the Renegades were able to exploit some jersey graps and make some good yards down the field.  They managed to cross a couple of more times in this quarter.  But the Griffins were not to be out done.  More pressure on a Renegades defensive scrum led to to flyhalf Trevor Turner jumping on the ball to take another Griffins try.  The rain was really coming down at this stage.  We turned into the final quarter still behind but some good rousing words by Captain Hedge got everyone focused going into the final quarter.  The goal was to socre another try and
keep them out of our tryzone.  A penalty to the griffins yielded a lineout on their 5 yard line.  Renegades had been focusing on snuffing out our maul before it could get going.  But a nice take by Hedge and a great set-up of the maul yelded a nice try to Joel Hedge from a great maul.  We finished out the half wih some great defense and kept our tryline intact. The final play of the game was a penalty to the Renegades which they slotted. The final score was 40-19.
Some great positives to take out of this game.  We scored 3 tries to Renegades 4 tries.  Kicks were the big difference.  They slotted 4 penalties.  We played a very experienced side out there.  There were a few A-side players in that side.  We got a number of our new guys some great game experience which is crucial.  Gametime is worth a couple of practices.  Our lineouts and scrums were excellent.  It was a hard day for our backline with the conditions and the fact that the starting backline had not run as a unit before.  So good job with limited playing time together.  A few areas for us to work on are body position going into the tackle, ball protection in the tackle, keeping out feet at the breakdown and focusing on good tackles when we start to get tired.
So lets focus on a good week at practice as we prepare for the Palmetto Tourney.  We need two good practices this week.

Posted by Webmaster September 29^th, 2009

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