Saxons Impress in Opening Fixture

Congratulations for an impressive performance against Trojans on Sunday. We trained with them for the first hour and then played 3 x 20 minute periods of rugby against there 2 squads. We had 15 Saxons fit to play on the day and took on 26 Trojans. Right from the beginning of the first game you looked like a good side. Your team work, shape and structure was much better than we have seen before. You cleared out the rucks aggressively and the ball was moved away from the contact area and you moved the ball down the line and attacked out wide.

We had our first contested scrums and straight away the pack was impressive – good body positioning, a good strong squeeze and push, accurate hooking on our own ball and against the head and the ball channelled quickly to the base of the scrum. This is excellent and sets the team up for keeping and winning ball and allowing us to attack. We did have a bigger pack than the Trojans, but you were also more mobile, carried the ball well and were difficult for the Trojans to tackle.

The mid-field made some lovely breaks and looked dangerous in attack, if there was one criticism, we occasionally held on to the ball a second too long and did not get the ball to the wingers enough. We generated overlaps but didn’t realise and didn't exploit them. When we play on full size pitches you need to move the ball to the space and let your wingers have a run.

We won both of our first two periods 2 – 1 and 1-0 against the two Trojan squads, with Jamie Stephenson and Liam scoring in the first and Oliver Davis scoring in the second. For the final 20 minutes the Trojans put together a strong squad, but we held them and put them under immense pressure, which they broke with two seperate breakaway tries. Given that you had been playing practically non-stop for 50 minutes at that point with only two substitutes, I think your resilience, fitness and commitment was outstanding.

There were some great individual performances on Sunday. Jamie Stephenson and Matthew Thomas partnered well as scrum half and flyhalf and looked very comfortable and assured. We saw some scrum half pick and goes which you can do now, and Jamie made some lovely breaks, just need to communicate it so support players join you. Ben Price and Connor hooked well and won lots of ball, Connors body position for clearing out was the best I have seen in ages. Ollie and Liam made some great breaks as ever. Despite that, there was one player whose work rate really stood out, he tackled hard, got back to defend, chased down attackers and kicks, rucked out efficiently, had some great big ball carries and was a real handful for the Trojans – Rob Henderson was mentioned by the Trojans coaches as well and he was the Saxons Player of the Week, well done.