All Whites vs Teignmouth

On what was a testing day for All Whites, we were undone by a robust Teignmouth outfit, who sealed their success by playing their rugby from a decent platform and having a quality counter ruck successfully slowing down our ability to play fast rugby.

Every game lost is disappointing, and we are still yet to put out our full-strength side. We need to move on quickly and play the rugby we are so able to play.

Although short of several quality players due to injury and squad management, I was still expecting us to do the job; we have plenty of quality to step up to the mark and win these types of games.

We learned a lot about ourselves and had a chance to play against one of the league’s better sides. It’s given us early opportunities to see what we could do better. That’s what we need to concentrate and focus on and move that into next weeks fixture. We did have some fantastic periods where we played great rugby and had good set pieces. We will continue to grow in those areas. Quicker ruck ball, protecting and looking after the scrum-half by giving him the better, cleaner ball will create the speed we aim to play with. Allowing the opposition defence to organise doesn’t work for us, and we’ll be working on fixing that.

Our Men’s Rugby Development Manager and Head Coach Simon Morrell spoke with me several times over the last 48hrs after the match, “I’d love to see that same fixture in 4 weeks. We’re still very green and putting together the puzzle. So once that’s sorted, it’s thank you very much; home, Kit Kat and Corrie.” And I think he’s right too.

Next week’s trip to Tiverton will be a short trip up the road, where we need to play our rugby style from minute one. They’re one spot above us with mixed results, and these games could be crucial at the end of the season. We will aim the be ruthless smart and will hopefully be carrying more KG onto the pitch too.