Alton played away to Fawley in a Hampshire age-group league match and it was a frustrating but determined match.

It was a cold and bright morning, with a flurry of snow, and a good referee meant that it was a "let the best team win" situation. To quote our Head Coach, "Fawley did not win this game, we lost it", showing that despite our efforts, there is definite room for improvement. A lack of communication throughout the team resulted in several obvious mistakes including overlaps not being used and some mistakes in defending. The positive attitude in our training sessions needs to be translated onto the pitch, as some of our discipline seems to go out of the window during the game.

Fawley had a strong back-line with some very tall and fast centres, something that we found hard to deal with. This meant on quite a few occasions they crashed through our defensive line and strolled across the try-line, something which seemed to fade away as the match developed. Fawley also had an advantage in the breakdowns, especially the rucks. Their forwards committed to the ruck immediately, and on several occasions the ball was already in the scrum-half’s hands before we even managed to reach the ruck.

In the end, this was a match we could have won, and we will no-doubt learn from our mistakes that lost us the game. Fawley were a strong side, and it was a definite learning curve for the whole team. Through out the game our backs were getting drawn in leaving Nathaniel Ward out on the wing by himself. Some of the forwards were just walking to the breakdowns and when they eventually arrived, just stood at the back! The lineouts went well, despite the problems caused by having to throw the ball over the Fawley number five but we managed to do this. Tom Rudman did his best to catch the ball but we should of used some of our set plays when Dylan Saralis had a penalty in their twenty-two - he should of kicked instead of running it.

Unfortunately, Peter Dawson hurt his back early in the game and with Peter out, Chris Mayo propped and he did a good job. However we do need to tighten the scrum to improve it's effectiveness. Our decision making was good in parts but on several occassions when within 15m of the opposition’s line and with a 3 on 1 overlap on the wing, we tried to force our way through the centre when they had been dominating the rucks and mauls. Our coach also ppointed out that although we had spent half of the previous training session working on where to stand when receiving the kick off we did not do it.

 
With a team of just 17 our game didn’t start very well with Fawley scoring their first try in the first five minutes but Fawley’s ball carriers made several errors which enabled us to take advantage. Alton were four tries down at half time making the score 24 – 5. Alton came out after half time determined to turn the game around but although Alton lost the game we ruffled a few feathers in doing so. The final score was Fawley 24 – Alton 17, the scorers were Chris Miles – 2 tries, Dylan Saralis – 1 try and 2 conversions.

Match report by Callum Crowley, Peter Dawson and Will Deans.