Plate Exit Semi Final Defeat to Wigan RUFC

Well done Wigan RUFC U13s, a great performance today from what was clearly a well drilled, cohesive unit full of committed players working well as a team. All the best in the Final.

Unfortunately though today we didn't turn up, even at our best I think Wigan would have been too strong, but we failed to compete in key areas which was disappointing.

From the off we seemed off the pace, a penalty tap and go by Wigan was briefly halted before the line, before a second pick up was carried over for the first try 3 minutes in.

From the restart we kicked long and unfortunately right to their number 11 who showed flying pace to cut through our missed tackles, and once clear had the beating of our quicks, there's no answer to blinding pace and we were outdone and down 2 tries in 6 minutes.

Heads were down and we entered a defensive mindset, not taking the game to Wigan in the way we had done in the Group stage and QF. We managed to stem the flow for a while but we were rarely troubling them in their half going down again on 14 minutes to a 3rd converted try.

Time for some early substitutions to make a difference and we had a 10 minute spell where Toc H started to compete, whilst there was effort and commitment the basic skill set was poor and precision lacking, we were struggling to tackle effectively being slower in thought and movement and continually on the back foot.

Our passing was sloppy, balls being flung wide with little accuracy, it needed some hard running and straightening usually a strong point of our game, but the defensive work was taking its toil. When we did attack their line we cut back in to heavy traffic when shipping quickly wide was the right decision, we weren't playing heads up rugby.

The scrum was struggling, always moving backwards with very little if any clean ball won on out put in. We just couldn't get any concerted go forward shove on.

The fourth try was conceded in the corner from a scrum, not only did they get the shove on, the scrum wheeled round to leave their No.8 to pick and go without any of our own big lads defending the blindside, savvy rugby from Wigan.

HT - chance for a breather!

The 2nd half started really positively, we had our best period of play resulting in Toc H scoring a try with OJ breaking through the tackles. Unfortunately it didn't last.

We shipped 2 scores, our tackling was just too high and ineffective to make the difference and the Wigan support play was excellent so we weren't just missing tackles on BLs but on the team as a whole.

Playing for pride we did rally with some committed running from OJ, Leo & Sam M and good tackling from the 2 locks Sam B & Nathan, with a try saving effort from Nathan in the far corner driving the maul out of play. Brave tackling from Mikey in the corner but unfortunately they ran in the score to seal the game.

Despite the disappointment of today's performance we can recall good Rugby to this point and we did make a Semi Final, so there are positives to take forward into the remaining games of the season and some lessons to learn for next year.

Thanks to Rob for referring a good game.