Men’s 1st XV v Tonbridge Juddians 13/02/2010

Away – London 2 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Lost 5-41

Well, the best thing about this bitingly cold afternoon was definitely the Liver and Bacon casserole that Geoff and I had in the Chequers just up the road from the ground. Lashings of English Mustard, Mash, Onion Gravy (and some greenery for the five a day!) – handsome.

Sadly, the game from a Hove perspective did not live up to the lunch. I should mention though, that had you been a neutral you would likely have enjoyed it and had you been a TJ supporter then you would have been cock a hoop.

Hove didn’t play well – they can play better, but on the day they were outplayed, out thought, out decisioned (word?) and for sure outclassed.

Early hopes that we might be able to give them a game were dashed in the 4th minute when TJs went over for the first of their 6 tries. Hove could manage a reply of a lonely 1.

The tackling was bad. Some would say – and, indeed, DID say – non existent although that would be a little harsh. Someone asked me on the way off the pitch how many synonyms were there for the word “inept”. Someone else asked if I was going to use the word “shit” or add the “e” for the posher “shite”?All those are pretty valid comments had your hauled yourself up to TJs and braved the winter elements (frozen your cods off basically) with the hope of the team putting in a good performance.

The tackling WAS poor, the decision making WAS poor, the kicking was pointless most of the time and is something that has become more and more prevalent in recent weeks. STOP IT! Justin Marshall was pitch side commentator for the (equally awful) Italy vs England game yesterday and he was asked for an opinion on England’s kicking which, like Hove’s, was pretty useless. His comment (presumably straight out of an All Black coaching manual) was “Kick to land, and not to hand”.

And that was the problem. All the speculative punts up field were going straight to eager TJ backs who then just ran it back and broke the line time after time. But we didn’t seem to learn the lesson and continued kicking it to them in an act of questionable generosity. So, if you MUST kick then please try and find touch or at least get it over the heads of the opposition and make them work to get the ball.

In the 10th minute Hove were awarded a penalty in field and went for touch but missed and this pretty much summed up the game. An attempted drop goal was launched with a similar result. TJ’s broke for a second try in the 14th minute and the tackling was so woeful as to hardly merit use of the verb.

After the successful conversion, Hove made some ground and were in the TJs half. An infringement gave us a kickable penalty and this Ben took only for it to agonisingly hit the upright and bounce back to willing and waiting TJ hands.

The kicking flaw came to the fore again in the 25th minute when the ball was hoofed up field in the hit and hope fashion that we have come to dread and, sure enough, straight into a TJ hand and off they galloped for another try – the tackling being similarly poor.

The supporters were screaming for the ball to be played to hand and for us to at least attempt to make some ground with the ball in hand when in the 33rd minute another kick was launched and the result was pretty much the same with TJ’s catching it eagerly and making the ground up easily evading the cuddles of the Hove defence. The only difference this time was that they converted the try as well.

So, half time came and we were 24-0 down. Sadly, a clash of heads had removed Ben Coulson from the pitch and Seb was on. But, Seb was looking sharp and there was hope that maybe some individual spark may ignite where the team’s damp squib was failing.

A further change at half time saw Paul Hasib go off and Bevan go into the front row, Liam from blind to lock and for Paul Cox to make his Hove debut.

After 10 minutes of the second half, a disgraceful decision by the touch judge suggested that Seb was in touch when he had already passed the ball inside to Matt Sole. Now, I’m not saying this cost us the game or anything silly like that, but as I said before, Seb was a bit of a livewire and had that move been allowed to develop as it should have done then we might have made something of it and an early score in the second half may have upped the resolve level somewhat.

If the volunteer touch judges make a mistake like that then they should let the ref know rather than stick to their wrong decision. No one will feel any less of them for admitting a mistake.Anyway the flag stayed resolutely up and from the throw, TJ were somehow awarded a penalty which they converted. Ten minutes later, a further try by TJ took the score to 34-0 and with only 20 minutes left, even the most fervent optimist was surely realising the inevitable. I even saw some of the Hove supporters leave early which was a shame.

An injury to Stoffel caused the front row to be re-jigged again and Paul replaced him in the front row.

Hove possibly then had their best spell of the match with Adam and Seb combining well and just falling short of the line (no kicks were harmed in the making of that move!). A 5m scrum was awarded and Hove did well and several phases were seen before the ball was spilled and TJs counter attacked and scored a converted try to take it to 41-0.

I was putting my notebook away and thinking about the journey home when Seb caught the ball on or about his 22. Ignoring the siren voices to pass, Seb ran, jinked, ran again and evaded all attempts to stop him and broke through the entire TJ defence to score in the corner for Hove’s FIRST points of the match. Adam made a good fist of the kick but couldn’t quite get it over. The referee blew and that was the end of the game.

Ok, so well done to TJs who were worthy winners and best of luck to them next season in London S1 as they will surely be crowned champions now.

And what about Hove. Well, I have been fairly accurate in what I’ve reported but remember TJ is the team that has won every game this season. A team who has trounced opposition by far more points than today.

And Hove are still second. We are four points clear of our nearest rivals and we have every reason to believe that we can put this game behind us and get on with the job of winning the second place that our performances deserve.

Yes, we had a bad day at the office. Yes, people get frustrated and this leads to more errors. But it’s over now. Its finished and we have other games to play and other games need winning.

I travelled back with Liam and Rory and they both agreed that we hadn’t performed to our best that day and that we had been taken apart by a better team. Well drilled were the words they used. And they accepted that we can perform better than that (and also accepted that we will need to if we wish to be a league up next year!).

So I am confident that we will learn from that encounter. Seb put in a great performance when he came on. Paul showed signs that he will perform well once he has settled in. Ben Ward had a decent game and was tackling and running well.

Dipo showed his worth and I thought given the circumstances had a pretty good game. Strong in his running and the tackle. The front five did well given that Stoffel had injured himself in the warm up and wasn’t able to run it off as had been hoped.

So, plenty to build on and plenty to be pleased about and plenty to look forward to. At the end of the day, we lost a game that we expected to lose and everyone else expected us to lose. Hardly a shock then.

Eastbourne next week at home and then Warlingham at home the week after. Let’s get back to winning ways and be a touch more confident in our game.

Man of the match: Dipo.