Saturday January 20
This weekend Pavs travelled over to Tamworth RFC in the latest round of the Midlands 2 North competition.
Conditions were a little questionable on the day, but both coaches agreed that the surface was playable even though it was rather “swampy” under foot as Aaron Langan termed it.
Pavs made a number of enforced changes with Dan Flint remaining at full back in the absence of the injured Matt Molyneux, Kieran Wells retuning at loose head prop for Dan Hyam, Ben Allen for Theo Collier and Danny Green taking over at 9 from his brother Jonty. It was also pleasing to see the emergence of Rohan Cates and Zac Walker on the bench.
Following, what seemed like an endless walk to the pitch, both sets of players and supporters finally arrived to find a surface that whilst firm was very slippy and greasy on the top.
The first quarter of the game saw both sides endeavour to play effective rugby even though all players were finding it difficult to keep their feet. This resulted in a number of painful looking accidental collisions.
Pavs had to defend stoutly early on, but began to make inroads into the Tamworth half as matters progressed. On thirty four minutes wing Alex Rimmington finished off Pavs first consolidated movement of the half to give them the lead at 5-0.
Unfortunately, on thirty eight minutes prop Jake Baldry was sent to the bin for a rather innocuous looking challenge. Rohan Cates replaced Tom Gladwin as Pavs maintained a full front row. Tamworth then got on the scoreboard with a penalty a minute later. On the verge of half time fly half George Billam them ghosted into score to give Pavs a lead at 10-3.
Following the break, Tamworth upped their work rate and pressed hard to be the first to score.
On forty three minutes, Pavs went down to thirteen as the official rather surprisingly and harshly chose to put George Billam in the bin for what looked like a genuine attempt to intercept a pass.
Tamworth used their number advantage to finally score and bring them close at 10-8. Baldry returned on forty eight minutes along with Aaron Langan entering the fray, but still with a man extra, Tamworth drew into the lead at 15-10 on fifty four minutes.
Six minutes later, Owen Taylor received a bloody nose and was forced off to stem matters to replaced by Rohan Cates (again). Tamworth then went further into the lead at 20-10. With the re-emergence of George Billam and back to a full unit, Pavs were able to settle down into playing rugby and set about closing the gap.
On sixty six minutes Tom Gladwin and Owen Taylor replaced Ben Allen and Rohan Cates. Pavs began to find some room on the width. Morgan Jones burst through before offloading to flanker Josh Alton-Smith to dive in and with the George Billam extras narrow the lead to 20-17. Tamworth then added a penalty on seventy minutes to take the score to 23-17, before Morgan Jones burst through his opponent to score on seventy five minutes and thus bring the score to 23-22 with five minutes left. Pavs then threw everything into grabbing the winning score and created a number of opportunities, but it was just not to be.
A bit of a trying day for Pavs. It was always going to be difficult to play with their open running style due to the prevalent conditions on the day. Having said this, it may also be true to say that Pavs were not quite on it early on and took time to settle, this being exacerbated by the sin bin decisions either side of the half time break.
The last ten minutes saw them look more like their normal selves, so whilst there may be a sense of disappointment at not winning, they know how to redress matters at training during the week and the against Melbourne RFC at home next weekend. At the end of the day Pavs scored 4 tries, took 2 points whilst restricting Tamworth to 3 tries, and thus remain third in the league. Onwards ……..!
Starting Squad: Kieran Wells, Owen Taylor, Jake Baldry, Ben Allen, Tom Gladwin, Josh Alton-Smith (VC, 1 try), Josh Flanagan, Phil Eggleshaw, Danny Green, George Billam (1 try, 1 conv), Alex Rimmington (1 try), Doug Billam (C), Morgan Jones (1 try), Will Taylor, Dan Flint
Finishers: Zac Walker, Aaron Langan (48 mins), Rohan Cates (Various)
Paviors Rugby Club play at Burntstump Hill, Arnold, NG5 8PQ and the club runs over twenty teams.
New players are always welcome – girls, boys, men & women, there is a team for all.
Further information about the club including contact details can be found on http://www.paviorsrfc.co.uk/ .
