15a match report vs Paul Roos

Despite playing against a Paul Roos team that put 50+ past Rondebosch the previous weekend we were still very positive during the week and believed that if we played to our potential and had a bit of luck on the day,  we could cause the upset. It was not to be…

The 1st half was strange in that neither team really got going. It was a very stop / start affair with very little continuity to speak of. Despite a very wobbly lineout we spent a significant amount of time in the Paul Roos half and had a number of opportunities to put them under pressure and score a try which would have giving us huge self belief and caused our opponents to chase the game. Things could have been very different…such is rugby!! Unfortunately we couldn’t make use of any of our opportunities and when Paul Roos did get into our half they kicked a penalty to go into halftime 3 – 0 up.

Although the scoreline was tight and we were very much in the game, it seemed like the boys had lost some belief. This was evident in their body language at half time. The wheels started to come off after we suffered yet another injury when our hooker was forced to leave the field with a leg injury. Paul Roos scored 22 unanswered points and it appeared as if the boys had lost their hunger and desire particularly on defence. Poor line speed and physicality resulted in easy metres for some of the Paul Roos big forward runners. They capitalised on the resulting momentum with the end result a disappointing 0 – 25 scoreline.

As coaches we don’t mind losing but our minimum requirement is that the boys play with courage and fight with everything they have until the final whistle. If we are honest, I don’t think we were true to that commitment in the 2nd half.

We hopefully welcome a few players back from injury this week as we look forward to our final game of the term against Wynberg on the 20th June. It is important that we finish the term on a high.