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League Match: Donaghadee 6 - 16 Civil Service (11/09/99)

"POOR START TO THE LEAGUE PROGRAMME

Rarely can a rugby football team have had their worst fears nullified as Civil Service did last Saturday. They must have arrived at Donaghadee for their first league encounter of the season, conscious that they had a strong pack and a former Ulster full-back and not a lot more. This was sufficient to win Section 3 last season but they must have been worried about the running game they would have expected from Donaghadee. One could imagine them thinking that they could hardly expect Donaghadee to keep the ball in the forwards where Service is strong, and kick it down the fullback's throat when they did get it.

Of course that is precisely what Donaghadee did do. Their forwards were giving away a lot of weight to the heavy Service eight, and the ball rarely emerged on Donaghadee's side. When it did it was either kicked directly to hand or short enough to be dealt with easily.

In fact the match was a poor spectacle. No one on the park played that wellin a stop-start niggly affair, eventually won by Civil Service 16-6. This is not to say that Donaghadee were all bad, or that Service were all good. Donaghadee were just worse than Service. They gifted the visitors two tries, virtually from nothing, and the only other scores were two penalties apiece from Colin Wilkinson and Paul Blewitt.

This puts Donaghadee in a place they have not been for a long time - bottom of the league on their own. This peculiar position may be because no other teams in Qualifying 2 have played yet, but unless some more application, effort and effective tactics are forthcoming, this lowly position could become permanent.

The Donaghadee forwards know to adopt low body positions when hitting rucks and mauls. The backs know when to kick, and the best places to aim for when they do. They just seemed to have left this knowledge in the changing room last Saturday when they took the field.

The tackling was reasonably good. In fact the tackling from both sides was tight enough to help the impression that there was little exciting rugby on offer. The difference seemed to be that the organised tackling policies of the visitors were better on this occasion than those of the home sides. The Donaghadee players may have thought they were focussed, but it did not seem so to the spectators. If this assessment is correct then some effort may be needed by all concerned before the match - focussed attention by players, coaches, supernumeraries and officials.

The Donaghadee team is much better than they showed on Saturday. The words of criticism above are meant positively. By the time this piece appears in print the coaches and players will have gone a long way towards correcting much of what went wrong. Civil Service are a better team than many thought a week ago. Donaghadee are a much better team than they looked on Saturday. If the bad play and poor result was a bitter pill to swallow, it may still prove to be an effective medicine."