Gentlemen,

Well a hard game there Saturday. Definitely a game we can take a lot of lessons from. And full credit to Clemson, they played well and deserved the win. It is definitely a game we could have won but one we didn't deserve to. I think one sentance sums up why we lost Saturday - You have to do the little things right. And what killed us was the little things. There are definitely a lot of positives we can take out of the game as well. But we need to correct the negatives. So below are my observations from the game.

Not taking our scoring opportunities. This is a must. We camped out on their line for a solid 10 minutes without scoring and turned the ball over to them which the ran the length of the field with and eventually scored. This was the key momentum shift of the game. We were 13-6 down getting ready to score to even the game and we cough it up to them for a length of the field score to make it 20-6. That was a heart breaker.

Lineouts. They were better but we still gave up about 50% of ours. We have to improve this area of our game.

Bunching up at the breakdown. Too many times all the forwards were bunched up at a ruck rather than committing 3 to the ruck and fanning out from there on defence. We need to think while we are tired.

The last pass. We have got to make certain of every pass. Too many times the ball went to deck and Clemson were able to come through and fly hack it down the field and relieve the pressure on their line. If the pass is not on don't make it. If the guy you are trying to pass it to is in a worse position than you are then don't make the pass. Let's use our ball wisely.

Team Fitness. Certain individuals are definitley fitter than others. But as a team we need to be fitter. It was very evident Saturday that Clemson were far fitter than we were. So they were able to force errors where we were tired and they were up in our face quickly. We are a long way from being where we need to be fitness wise to win this league. Commit to being fit.

Positives:

Tackling and Defence. In general our tackling and defence was excellent. Where we broke down was when we would lose the ball and Clemson would counter attack. one big area we need to improve on though is against penalties. Too many times we were not back 10 and they made 50 yds easy on us. But our man on man tackling was excelent.

Scrums. This is one area where our pack dominated. We won 80% of their scrums. Good job pack.

Discipline. Our discipline on the day was much better. Although we do need to just let Mike speak on the field. If you have a comment tell our Captain and he can relay it to the team.

Playing to the End. We played till the final whistle and we scored a try to finish out the game. It is important that we play to the final whistle.

So we have some areas we definitely need to work on. And we know which areas we need to target. I am very happy with the direction we are heading and the foundation we are getting in place. So we need everyone to work on their firness outside of practice and work hard together at practice. We now focus towards Old White this weekend. Depending on the weather tomorrow we may have to call practice. So check the hotline tomorrow (288-1825) and check your e-mail before you leave work.

Remember that when you lose, don't lose the lesson.


Dan Roberts
Coach Greenville RFC


Greenville Grffins Rugby Club