Saxons in Alton Action!

Thank you for a great morning of Rugby, the misery of the cold wet weather at Petersfield was a distant memory, as you sparkled with the ball in hand. You gave a really good account of yourselves today, scoring tries, winning matches and truly playing together as a team. You make team selection very easy, as you are all competent, committed players capable of running, passing, catching, tackling and scoring, so thank you.

For the matches that I saw, I was most impressed with your aggression in the tackling. If you watch the Six Nations, you will hear the commentators talk about line speed in defence, and that is a measure of how quick you are up to tackle the players at the restarts/recycles. If you are slow or wait for them to come to you, the attackers have time to gather speed, spot the gaps and attack. Today, you were up so quick and into the tackle, and then driving them backwards through the tackle that they had no time to organise, they were panicked and they threw forward passes, the passes went to ground or they spilled it. You won so many turnovers, including 7-tackling them, and then you had the ball and got the chance to score. To make things even better, I didn’t see many errors from us – we (mostly) stayed away from touch and stayed in play, there were no stupid hopeful passes and few handling errors. Well done!

At the debrief I should have made a few special mentions the coaches passed to me. Ed H had an excellent game, getting fully involved in both defence and attack and scored tries, excellent work Ed, delighted you are part of the team. Last weeks player of the week was this weeks Captain of my team and Matthew C produced another solid Captains Performance with an electric try to boot. We all saw the power and great handling skills of Alton’s very own Jonah Lomu; he is a talented strong player, but I was very pleased to see that you were not daunted by him and you tackled him with commitment. I hear that I missed a superb full tackle on Luke by James T, proving that the correct technique and commitment will allow you to tackle the strongest players again and again, well done James. If we had tackle of the week, you would have it!

I was very pleased to hear that Aden J was finding space and pace to attack and was through to score 4 tries. I wasn’t there to see, but I can picture them. He is a great impact player, our leading try-scorer and I was delighted he was awarded Saxons try of the week. It was also a nice bow!

I didn’t announce a Pass of the Week, but now I have thought about it, there were two great passes I witnessed from the same player. The first was after he had made a searing run over half the pitch, shaking off tacklers and realised he was running out of space. He turned and popped a wonderful pass to Alfie C, who does what Alfie does, exploding with acceleration and aggression and the defence stood back and showed him the try line! The second was as we ran out from our try own line. At full pace and realising he was being covered and about to be tackled, he gave a lovely weighted pass over about 6 feet to Josh, who was able to attack the space on the wing and run the ball away from our try line. These are both the type of passes we want to re-produce and we will work on them. Well done Harvey for bringing your game with you today, it is so lovely to see.

There were lots of strong performances today, but there was one player who appeared to be getting over the gain line and making lots of yards today and that was Josh. It was his first break and try in our second game that reminded us we can score, and he had several other scintillating runs which due plaudits from both clubs parents. Well done Josh for player of the week.

Next week we are hosting Portsmouth and Eastleigh in a triangular fixture and we will follow the same format as today. Please ket me know if you will not be there as I need to plan the event closely (and order enough hot dogs!)

I would like to extend my thanks to Steve and his team at Alton for a warm welcome and a fantastic morning of rugby and we look forward to seeing them at tournaments over the next few months.

Finally, I would like to apologise to Sam; you were absolutely right I shouldn’t have said we have all met Alton before, I should have said ‘some of us have met some of you somewhere before’! I am also thankful to Matthew T who was quick to note that my 3 cheers for Alton were deficient by one cheer. You Saxons keep me on my toes, I think I share your humour and I love it, thank you.

Have a good week (half-term!!!)