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Cookstown 15 - Strabane 22 | Sat 15th Oct 2005 | | A poor report written in a hurry to match a poor game where the traveling league leaders again made lives difficult for themselves with a bag full of errors mixed in with some small portions of very good play.
The Team
Mal. Davy F. McSparron. Nige. Brad. Gordy. Chris. Mitchie. Max. Brian. Ross. Mowbs. Bap. Housty. Paul.
Strabane arrived for the game in good time to warm up and prepare and found Cookstown in similarly determined mood after their good away win at Antrim last week.
The first half is difficult to describe as handling errors, no first up tackles, lost lineouts, scrums under pressure and poor back play were to the fore and despite all that we had the lions share of terrority. Cookstown with a much heavier pack began to settle and get some confidence from our mistakes and a nothing back move gave them the lead when I missed the fullback straight up one on one with the big no. 8 adding the conversion. This simple tackle which I never miss was indicative of the kind of day we were having.
A further piece of poor back play from a Cookstown lineout resulted in a 3 point penalty for offside and at the other end the normally reliable Housty hit the post from straight in front.
At this point it was 10-0, everyone rattled and nothing going right.
We began to play a little and for the first time string some phases together. Some good work by the centres set up a scrum and when Mitchie set up the position Maxy did well to finish from close range under pressure. Housty made amends with the 2 points.
At half time Mowbs was possessed by the devil and after having some sort of illegible rant went and had a sit down. Mal although not allowing halftime sit downs thought under the circumstances best to let it go.
We played better in the second half and scored 2 very good team tries, 3 if you count the one Maxy got disallowed for hugging their 7. Hello big boy.
Cricky gave Nige his xmas pressie early after some good phases involving backs and forwards and Housty added the 2 points plus a penalty and we started to look a little better until some clown at the back took their fullback out and got a 10min rest. (Yes I could use the embarrassed sticky again but its even worse than that!)
To make matters worse Cookstown scored anyway from a catch and drive so my enforced rest didn't even save the points.
15points each, 15 men v 14 and some-one explained to Bap that we weren't playing touch and he was allowed to put the hits in.
Bang, a Cookstown centre was eating grass, lost the ball and it bounced up into old lucky pants Mowbray's ample bread basket and we were under the posts. The fans on the line (me and Soupy) were wild and Housty did the honours from under the sticks.
Cookstown did put themselves in position again to score but some good defending kept them out.
In essence many of the set pieces were not up to our normal standard and for the first time in a while the scrum was under pressure. The backs made too many handling errors on what was a perfect day for rugby and the no. of missed tackles was too high, myself included.
I thought the back row was very good with Gordy taking his chance and Chris tormented their 10 covering every blade of grass. Mitchie carried the ball brilliantly from the back of a poor scrum.
Ross has got a bit of stick in the 2 games I missed but he never put a foot wrong yesterday and maybe the only player not to miss a tackle.
Better to come no doubt and we are still winning but sooner than later I would like to see us winning games playing our own game and with a bit of style. |
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