The good news? Before kick off Bishop's Strortford had conceded this Quarter Final match with too few eligible players available - so we march on to the Shield semi-final (date TBC) with a mandatory 45-0 win! The less good news? Our boys narrowly lost out on the match we did play - against the same club, as a friendly.

The boys played some really high quality rugby today. 15 available players including 3 new joiners lads played for 80 mins and put everything into it. Plays off 9 and 10 worked, they moved the ball well, scored some really good team tries and they tried things with confidence. The breakdown was generally good, lineout too. It's never easy to highlight individual performances in what was a solid team showing, however Jake B, captain Mikey and Umair were fantastic today. All 3 carried really strongly and tackled brilliantly. Stortford chose Jake as their MoM.
In terms of improvement areas, our overall defence was proved leaky again on occasion and ultimately that’s what cost us the game. Boys weren’t quick enough off the line and didn’t get round legs. This has been a similar theme in earlier games too. We spoke about it before the game, at half time and behind the posts, however some of the boys aren’t quick enough to read what’s happening to close the space and to commit to the tackle early and low. Stortford brought some A squad players off their bench late on and that did improve their game when our boys were tiring.
Friendly Result: Bs lost 31:36. We have an opportunity to correct our mistakes next month when we play the same team again in the league.