[Narbia]

Another youthful squad.
Fdkow6AXkAMzXzj.jpeg (64.92 KiB) Viewed 2104 times

[Ajax Treesdown]

[Lazyboy346]

That is a very strong looking Saints team for a cup competition. Fingers crossed we can take a close game and get a tbp like last week.

[M_W]

Little stronger for us this week with Loader into the 23 for Walsh, Parker for Fasogbon and Vajner for Scott.

Interesting team from Saints. Pretty strong on one hand, especially in the backs. But the starting pack is probably more on par with us and they do have a couple of schoolboys on the bench. Albeit Pollock (U18 openside) especially is going to be some player when he grows up.

[GHA]

Unbelievable scenes

[M_W]

I know it's Prem Cup, but that was a little more tension than I needed listening to the Radio on a Tuesday evening. Some effort from them in the second half.

[Narbia]

Totally outplayed 1st half. Jacob Atkins the redeemer second half.

[GHA]

https://www.premiershiprugby.com/watch/ ... up-round-2

[Stevie J]

Sadly couldn't attend due to work.

Anyone able to give some colour as to who shone or stood out?

[Narbia]

Sadly couldn't attend due to work.

Anyone able to give some colour as to who shone or stood out?

Hard to tell as I couldn't really identify other than Haffar, Cooke, Munga and Atkins. I think our #2 and 8 came off with a knock, so the stand in #2 did his job. I don't think we won a scrum penalty until the 2nd half, so maybe a look to the subs who actually were impactful.

0-19 at half time, and it looked like another capitulation to Saints, .... until the guys found their mojo.

You can imagine who were getting their act together in some part from the highlights linked above.
At a guess I'd say some of Scragg, Hitchcock, and Trotter may have had a hand in things. Atkins for sure.

Edit: Above line fails to note : Tom Hitchcock (Atkins 52), Ed Scragg (Chapman 40). Chapman got 2 tries.

Anyway, could someone start a thread on the Bath match, as I'll probably miss it sadly.

[Florida]

I think our #2 and 8 came off with a knock

Of course our hooker came off with a knock, we don't like having too many fit hookers available.

[Florida]

Full match available
https://video.premiershiprugby.com/cont ... up-round-2

[Lazyboy346]

Starting side ok but suffered from Saints just being big. Painter (TH), Ribbans (started at 5) and Sylvester (BF) were massive and they just had too much brute force for us. Not helped by Sir not understanding difference between driving through a scrum vs pushing sideways, nor lack of TMO to look at a few dangerous entries to rucks. Haffar got folded under half their side after a great charge forward, hope he's OK. Not sure what happened with Atkins or Harrison taking knocks. Hitchcock ended up being carried over by scorer or being last defender for all three first half tries, partly positioning but some bad luck as others missed tackles/drifted so he got the rough end.

Turn around seemed to be sparked by introduction of Chapman and Atkins. Former gave physical go forward, latter added second play maker that helped us get past their otherwise solid wall. Painter and Ribbans coming off likely helped too. Trotter got better as game progressed and made in roads through defence that had rebuffed him before.

Munya grew into the game - had been poorly placed at rucks leading to first half charge down and a bit slow to react, but secure on line outs and better in loose after the break. Cooke threw himself in all game, definitely an 80 min player - not big but a great engine which is a key USP amongst our back rows (Pearson and Gonzalez shown same at times). Jennings was solid all game despite some big (borderline late) hits, dirty work in rucks and odd ball timing from O'Sullivan at points.

A good game to win but we'll likely need to win both our last two games to get a home SF as our points difference is low.

[Florida]

Just watched the first half, given the score I was expecting a horror. It wasn't that bad, we lacked a bit of go forward and penetration and when we did have those we lacked execution.

No one has really stood out (for good or bad) except perhaps Trotter who has put in couple of nice tackles and scrambled in defense to stop line breaks and tries.