Starting line-up

1 Rik Relph 2 Shannon Neyland 3 Richard Cowley

4 Matt Price 5 Owain Harrison

6 Chris Milne 7 Colin Weir 8 Rob Bevington

9 Ritz Steytler 10 Daray Horn 15 Ben Sutton

11 Alex Moreau 12 Tom Carmody 13 Shawnton De Four 14 Matt Turner

Players loaned to Stags Sam Vail, Gary Craggs, Eddy Murphy

Manager: Nick ‘Tweety Pie’ Nicholson

Match report by Rob Bevington

We arrived at Huntingdon with a strong squad of 18 players and first mention must go to Sam, Gary and Bill-Bob who played for Huntingdon as they were struggling for numbers and they enabled the game to go ahead as a fair contest, even though Huntingdon only had 14 players. Good game by all of them, Sam showing our front row what difficulty he normally gives the opposition.

So, onto the Renegades, on paper we had a strong team and went into the game with confidence. We opted to receive the first kick-off and immediately took the game to the Stags. The ground was muddy and slippery and made scrums difficult, but this does not explain why for the first half the ‘Gades could not win clean ball from the scrums. We battled hard throughout the first part of the game but never created a good platform to make major inroads into the Stags defence.

It was an untidy game, with the wet ball not sticking in our hands. In the forwards we too often took the wrong option and threw the ball away instead of taking it into the tackle and recycling good clean ball to our backs and for the majority of the first half the backs were woefully under-used, and only called upon to do the defensive side of their job as they never got the opportunity to display their attacking prowess. After about 12 minutes we had our first breakthrough with the ball going to the backs for the first time and Darey taking it over the line with good support from 30 yards to score a try which he converted well. After another untidy passage, but with good pressure on the Stags try line we won a scrum and after a pick-up and popped pass by Rob at No.8 Ritz powered over to increase the lead to 12 points and all looked good.

Then the game became sloppy. Due to inconsistent decisions by the Ref and a failure to spot repeated infringements by both sides, both teams took it upon themselves to enforce their own punishments. Late tackles, incidents off the ball and in general trying to get away with whatever they knew they could, the match became spoilt by a lack of discipline and control. Rob as captain was disappointing in his team leadership, and the match spilled over into penalty followed by 10 yard extra punishment. It was fortunate in only that a serious injury was avoided and both teams managed to finish with all players on the pitch!

It was late in the first half that Stags got their first opportunity to break and they took it well, their fast and elusive fly half running from his own 22 to score a try and get the conversion to put them back in the game. Half time came and after a strong team talk from Flora we set off to make the 2 nd half ours. It wasn't to be, sloppy forward play and an inability to clear away the opposition meant we allowed turnover of the ball too often, added to a number of missed tackles and mistakes we put ourselves under pressure.

We managed to win some clean ball and planned to try to use our backs who were starting to think Christmas would arrive before the ball! We got the ball to Shawnton who showed his ability to carry their players backwards and wrap up many of the opposition leaving gaps which unfortunately we did not win quick enough or clean enough to make maximum use of. Then once again we got caught on the break and they ran in another long range try to even the score at 12-12. The ‘Gades got tense and again made unforced errors in the pack, the off the ball game was becoming much more solid than the one that was being played officially.

After winning a penalty about 30 yards out, Darey showed great confidence and belief to convert the penalty for a 3 point lead and after a missed penalty by Stags and good defence on our own try line with 10 minutes to go, we cleared our lines and managed to hold them in their own half for the last part of the game. Still looking vulnerable to a fast counter attack, we were fortunate to keep hold of the ball with the last play of the game and Ben ran in a fantastic try out on the left wing to make the score after the conversion of 22-12, flattering to ‘Gades, who made what looked like an opportunity to stamp their authority on a weakened Stags team into a messy game where they became embroiled in a petty, dirty game rather than concentrating on their own plan and strengths.

In summary, the forwards were slow to the breakdown and not strong enough in the tackles for all but the usual suspects. We did not present clean ball and the backs were under-used and would be right to be disappointed by the poor service on a cold and miserable day. We have a lot of speed and power in our backs which we did not show nearly enough. We need to up our game and toughen up in the forwards, rather than expecting Glove and Colin to do ALL the hard work. We missed Ren winning back the 50-50 balls and therefore I can conclude that once again our poor performance was down to Ren!

Rob (trying not to rant about the ref!)

Comments from Sam for Oppo's point of view....

.

"As I was playing for the other side, I gained an insight as to what other teams think about playing against the Renegades. The Staggerers thought they were going to struggle in the pack but have more success out wide. As it turns out, the Staggerers rucking, mauling and pick-and-drive tactics were working well. Stags scrums were staying somewhat firms, despite only having 7 forwards and a scrum-half who took forever to feed the ball. Lineouts were the Stags bugbear, we couldn't win a thing, even on our own throw, thanks to 'the glove' getting too high and too fast. That's why we didn't kick much. The Staggs backs were outpacing the Renegades as predicted. All things considered, the Renegades should have won by a larger margin than they did as they never killed the game effectively. Right up to the last play the Staggerers were backing themselves to win. It was fun to play against the Renegades, even with Shawnton dragging players half the length of the pitch! " Sam Vail

Try

Ritz 1
Daray 1
Ben 1

Penalty

Daray 1

Conversion

Daray 2

Drop Goal

Nominations