Smash, mouth, rugby! There was absolutely no lack of commitment from either team this past Sunday as one player got knocked out, two others were led from the pitch looking decidedly woozy, and several others limped or hopped off after crunching tackles. The following is an excerpt of a conversation between Debbie (AK No 9) and her coach:

Debbie: Can I go back on now?
Coach: No, you were knocked unconcious! The ref won’t let you and neither will I.
Debbie: But I don’t feel dizzy or nauseous or anything!

The game itself was an intriguing tussle between teams with very different capabilities. The AK front five was dominant in most areas of the scrum, but the Waterloo back row were terrier-like in their hounding of the scrum half and stand off. The Kersal back line had vision and creativity but lacked a consistent cutting edge, whereas the Waterloo backs kept it simple through the hands and relied on pace to gain ground.

It was the simplicity of the Waterloo backs’ strategy, and the ease with which they carried it out, that was the difference in the scoreline. They were able to take what hard-fought possesion they could and quickly turn it into a 40 or 50 metre territorial advantage. With that platform it was then extremely difficult for the hard-working AK pack to continue to keep them from scoring.

This is not to say it was a one-sided affair. Despite finding it much more difficult to gain ground, Kersal controlled possesion of the ball for long periods in this game and although only scoring one try, did put themselves in position to score more. It was 5-17 at half time, and were it not for two very late converted tries at the end of the second as Kersal finally ran out of steam, the result might have been 5-26 and a bit more representative of the efforts and skills shown by both teams.

A very determined performance from AK who continue to improve every game, although both teams must be concerned that if they lose this many players from every game in the coming months, they’ll be happy to field 7s teams by the end of the season.

Right, now its time to dig out the old road atlas and try and find Camp Hill!

[I'll post a match report if anyone wants to submit some details - Ed]