Chinnor Game U23

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First off a bit of back ground.

Chinnor had a cup game on Saturday so they rested some of their first team and we ended up playing their 2nd XV, containing quite a few 1st XV players. They had a very strong pack and the backs were well organised and strong. We got off to a bad start and some of the lads weren't switched on, they scored within 5 mins. We had a fairly strong wind against us and the lads played some good phases, rather than kicking their way out of trouble and giving them free ball.

Continuity was ok but same old problem with having different players in key positions caused a few problems. Defence started to work well and we shut down the space quickly. At Half time we were 25-0 down, we didn't panic and the lads stuck to the game plan.

We had a few problems with injuries, one in particular at the start of the second half with a neck injury (SAC Devlin) in a collapsed scrum to one of our props, he is going to be ok, but spent the night in hospital and was looked after very well by Pete Lilly and Sarah Hall from our medical team. The other prop (SAC Coghlan) sprained his ankle and one of the centres (Fg Off Smith) damaged his wrist (after a good early display), all in the space of 15 mins.

We worked Chinnor very hard in the second half and performed well, scoring a try (Cpl Steve Jones - RAF Cosford), out wide in the backs by identifying a mismatch and attacked it. We shut them out for the whole of the half which was pleasing, final score 25-5. Not a win but useful as a building exercise. During training at RAF Halton we were fortunate to have Wg Cdr Chris Goss from the RAF Referees Association come and do a session that worked very well - ensuring that all the squad were aware of the new laws started this season.