Saxons Welcome Romsey

Last Sunday we hosted Romsey for the first time and they really enjoyed training and playing with us and thought our standard of rugby and hosting was superb so thank you. Our handling, passing and running game continues to grow and your attitude and commitment in training is really excellent, thank you. You probably can’t see it but you are developing at a fast rate and are communicating more, finding space, supporting each other and making some terrific passes and running some great attacking lines. Rucking and mauling still needs some work, but you understand the basics – lets secure the ball, get it out of there and move it away from contact by running it and passing to players in space.

Romsey brought 8 players so it was good to see Saxons joining them to make up the numbers and provide rolling subs for the matches; thank you Callum T and Conor L. Conor L made such an impression and enjoyed cutting through the Saxons, Romsey were delighted– watch they don’t try and poach you!

Romsey got off to a good start with some of their big players suddenly realising they could run and attack and we perhaps did not organise our defences well enough and were gathered around the contact area. We were often caught offside or putting too many players in the mauls (ball carrier plus 1 in attack or 2 defenders in defence) or playing the ball when we were off our feet. When their biggest player realised he could play, it was good to see the Saxons respond and find ways to stop him through proper tackling technique – well done Max F, you were the first to commit and felled him brilliantly. He made some early breaks, but you learned how to handle him and he became less of a threat. There was some really promising play from the Saxons and the Romsey coaches said their team has not played that well all season (it must have been Sundays Coaching!).

Romsey defended extremely well and it was very difficult to make breaks against them. When we did it was really pleasing to see the ball being passed away from the contact area to players in space who could then attack. The Saxon try of the week came from a break from Oli K, supported by Harriet M, who made a lovely weighted pass to Aden J in space just before she was tackled. Aden J was then able to make another break of the stretched Romsey defence and offload to Matthew T who scored in the corner. That was a really well made try and was scored because the ball was moved away from the contact area, the Romsey defence was stretched and Saxons were able to attack and break thorough. Well done Matthew T for Try of the Week.

Player of the week had worked hard at training and then applied the skills in the match. Harriet M was hungry for the ball and was either taking the restarts or was in the attacking line , hands up asking for the pass. When taking the ball into contact she was able to protect it and lay it back to her own side or offload with a good pass as she did in Matthew Ts try. This was a really good performance from Harriet, she drew positive comment from the Romsey coaches and as Matt H said after ‘ I was also pleased to hear Harriet got player of the week, she was certainly my player of the week, her skills training was really good and in the touch game she was excellent. She is such a good listener and puts it into her play’ Well done Harriet.