Coaches Corner - Season Mid-Point
It seems crazy to me that I am writing to you now halfway through the season as we look to welcome London Scottish to Beaconsfield this Saturday.
Before looking ahead to this weekend let’s take a look back at our game against the Old Haberdashers. A 21-5 victory on the road in torrid conditions where not only did we outnumber them on the scoreboard but also on the touchline. What a testament to our club that so many loyal supporters braved Storm Darragh to show their support for our 1st XV. The game was won in an exceptional first half playing against an incredibly strong wind on a moist pitch, playing with intent and quality to lead the game 7-0 at half time. In the 2nd half the wind was such a factor that the victory was almost guaranteed it was just a case of by how many. Callum Saganowski epitomised our defensive tenacity and Aled Lewis led the attacking charge scoring two tries and converting all three in an outstanding performance.
The conditions clearly played their part in the quality of the game but I am grateful to Old Habs for getting the game on and providing a good contest. The last thing we need is rearranged games onto “free” weekends where we may struggle to get our strongest team out.
This weekend we welcome London Scottish to Windsor End and I am excited to play them for a second time this season. London Scottish sit in 2nd in the league and are looking to keep up the pressure on HAC who lead by 3 points. Last time we faced them we lost 40-31 and I definitely came away from that game feeling we missed an opportunity. Discipline cost us in that game with three yellow cards and it felt like without those we would have been challenging for the win right up to the final moments. Now I am fairly confident that Scottish will have improved since we last faced them and I was impressed at their place at the quality of their pack. They had a lot of quality and nouse around their set piece and this allowed them to play a smart territory game and they were ruthless in the 22. This week we have been working hard to add some things to our attacking game that we think will help us in the winter conditions and we hope that will cause the opposition some problems. I want to keep drip feeding in improvements to our game so that the opposition can’t work us out as well as keeping our boys on their toes!
This is our Christmas home fixture and there are rumours of a bumper crowd at the club this weekend. An apparent 120 people will be sitting down for lunch at the club and I look forward to saying a few words to our guests before the game. The club is such a vibrant place when it is full and it’s fair to say we are the premier venue in town between 2 and 3pm on Saturday afternoons.
If you are on the fence about whether to pop down on Saturday I’d encourage you to come and show your support. You won’t be disappointed.
To finish up I’d like to pay homage to an important member of our club. Ben Taylor has put incredible work into our pitches over the past few months and to have our first team pitch looking in such great condition in the middle of December following multiple storms is a testament to his skill and effort. The relationship between a coach and a groundsman can often be tempestuous with one’s job basically to destroy the others! Clubs don’t run without the hard work of people like Ben so a massive thank you for all the time you invest.
That’s it from me. I won’t be writing another of these until after Christmas so I hope the festive period brings you plenty of love and cheer. Don’t worry about getting me a present, 10 points against Scottish and Marlow will be more than enough!
See you on the sidelines,
Russ.
