Man of the match

By Citizen Slacker
February 16 2013

Another game, the 100% record remains intact, with a BP to boot. There are two kinds of match report, those that give you facts, and those that offer a flavour. I'll try the former, but probably end up giving the latter.     .

Arriving at KP with half an hour to spare I shambled in to the West for a pint of guest, only to find the two selections on offer had gone already. Well, as flavours go, vitamin G is as good a lubricant as anything else to cheer the lads along.

There are many parallels the Falcons support can draw on between Quins & themselves, the one that struck me early on this evening was the way that the ground feels like quins did five years ago, people chatting whilst rugby happens nearby. There were a few ripples of cheering as the team sheet was read out, but that died out with a wimper. Once upon a time when the ground went quiet you could hear a pin drop, these days during the minute's silence you hear 'phones ping as messages arrive.

Still, to the game. Moseley came to put up a contest, which they did from the off, switching the kick off. From what looked suspiciously like a knock-on from Higgins the ball was put in to touch by the Falcons. The resulting line out had the ball drop to the Mos hooker who was bundled in to touch. Simple ball off the top was sent in to midfield, where Jimmy G sent a corker of a cross field kick across to Shortland, who beat one defender, passing back inside to give Catterick the first score. Not for the last time, Gopperth missed the posts with the conversion, but with less than three minutes on the board we were five points up.

The second start by Moseley was switched again, but this time Falcons fielded well moving the ball up field, spending a few minutes camped on the Moseley's line, before Rob Vickers was driven over to the right of the posts. Jimmy duly converted.

On 26 minutes Moseley got their only points of the evening, after the ref decided Falcons had not rolled away from the tackle, the fly half hitting the mark from out near the East Stand.

Jimmy missed his next shot at goal from what appeared to be a banker, just to the right of the posts. The ref had an interesting night of interpreting the scrum, penalising Golding at one point, when Tomahawk's side of the scrum went down. The resulting kick for the posts went wide, and as Catterick waited for the ball to come down and roll it in to the dead ball area, it landed in goal & squelched dead in the mud. This brought to the end a series of knock ons from both sides, a kick in to touch ending the half.

The second half started as brightly as the first, a quick score from TC taking a pass meant for a forward, then dancing between the Moseley props, followed by the bonus point within 10 minutes of the half restarting, Gopperth being fed in to a gap but missing the conversion. Catterick was on for a hattrick but saw his name in lights rather than the ball, knocking on 15 metres out.

Steadman got on the score sheet for the second game in a row, dragging a defender over the line with him to score.

What struck me most tonight was that there was a definite game plan. Moves that had been developed on the training pitches were being put in to practice. Whilst some of the execution may have left a little to be desired, there was a clear goal of working Moseley from side to side and putting players in to gaps,not always successful, even Tofu took a big hit midifield that could be heard at the back of the South Stand, but Heuller looked like Mayerhoffler reborn, running angles, taking defenders with him and punching holes in the opposition back line.

Our scrum had been dominant throughout, and could have been utterly destructive, but for the ground cutting up a little and the afore mentioned interpretation. McLeod found himself in the bath first as he was binned for "cynically" not rolling away from a tackle, and even though Moseley had been looking to score since the first half - opting for line outs rather than three pointers - a 14 man Falcons team was able to hold out.

With the last play of the game the Falcons opted for a scrum, eventually Ally Hogg putting the ball down for the sixth try.

Those looking for a performance should be happy about what they saw. Moseley were a good side, their forwards nearly matching ours on a few occasions - there were more penalties given to them at scrum time than us - a couple of cases of handbags and their scrum half making Lawson work for every ball in the scrum was interesting to watch.

As good as the scoring chances were, with more converted than missed, the defence was outstanding. The crowd finally warmed up, cheering the lads on in the last twenty minutes or so with something like the old passion.

Final score 34 - 3, not as good as many on here had hoped, but there was method in the playmaking, method that became practice, resulting in nilling the opposition in tries and racking up another bonus point.