Season opener at Bredon

First game of the season, new rules and new players, a chance to blow off the summer cobwebs for some and a first taste of competitive rugby for others.

Not sure if it was playing rugby at a cricket club, or parking further away than most journeys had begun, but something certainly spooked the horses.

Game 1 – Evesham A v Bredon

With Gazellederson off playing ‘Rupert Rugby’ with his posh school pals and Hamish out with injury, James (Gladiat) Hoare stepped up to fill the unfamiliar 10 shirt. Practise the skill not the drill they say, well moving the ball clearly fell of the radar as Evesham reverted to the single pass and run approach of years gone by (ggrrrrr). Defensive line and rucking were a bit squiffy too, all a far cry from the performance against the U12 last week.

After a couple of Evesham tries were disallowed, as usual it fell to a forward to restore some pride, Jake (where's the cake) Hopkins muscled his way over for a try to counter the 3 scored by Bredon.

On the positive side the standard of individual tackling was generally decent, Max put in a great shift at scrum half, there is no shortage of talent it just needs to connect together, simple tweaks will make a big difference going forward.

Game 2 – Evesham Dev v Bredon

First game in this format, playing the development lads together to accelerate their progress and gain experience, so it is all about game time and not about scores. We will see steady progress from this baseline through the season.

Joel and Geordy stepped up and led from the front, showing the new lads the way with tackling and rucking. Indy demonstrated some of his newly acquired skills in tackling, Matt was all over his first game, George had a run at ‘em and Aimee was solid as usual at scrum half.

Bredon scored some tries and we didn’t.

Game 3 – Evesham A v Bredon

Generally more of the same from Game 1 but with a little more vigour in defence to keep Bredon out this time. Slippery Wycherley lived up to his name on the few occasions the ball got out that far but was unable to shake all 6 tackles in a row.

Looking like a no score game until Will Brett got bored of the fancy footwork (Will does nimble feet like an elephant does ice skating) and used his Samoan Sidestep to push 4 black shirts back over their line and touch down with a thud. It wasn’t subtle, it wasn’t pretty but it worked – this time.

Game 4 – Evesham Dev v Bredon

Standing by the decision to play this configuration, the lads got more practise at tackling as Bredon kept the attacking lines coming. Ultimately too much for the fledgling defence but rewarding to see each player grow into the game.

Bredon scored some, we almost did.

Thanks to Bredon for hosting the season opener and Scott (Bredon) and Ed (Evesham) for sharing the whistle.

Man of the Match took no discussion this week, Max(imus) Aris did the work of 3 despite being half the size of 1 (so that’s like 6, right?).