Griffon RFC News - 04/09/06

April 8th, 2006: Battle Creek Griffon 16 Fort Wayne 12.

A nice win away at Fort Wayne for the Griffons. A sign that we are starting to impose our game plan on the opposition, and turning our pressure game into a victory.
We started with some nice kicks to the corners, turning Fort Wayne and putting pressure on their wingers. We spent most of the first half in Fort Wayne territory, but we did not turn our good field position into points, and Fort Wayne escaped once into our half and scored a try to lead 5 - 0.
We brought the score back to 5-3 with a penalty kick, and eventually started to impose our inside rucking game inside their 22 metre area.
Scrummaging was really solid, and we were putting lots of pressure on Fort Wayne in this area, causing them to move backwards before they could start their attack. Our lineouts were mostly positive, but were affected by a strong wind causing some "not straight" throws.
We missed a couple of penalties, and then kicked two to lead 9 - 5.
Fort Wayne put us back in our 22, and from the lineout they charged down the attempted clearance kick to score a try, and converted - 12 - 9 Fort Wayne.

The Griffons restarted with a good long kick forcing Fort Wayne back near their line, and increased the pressure using our strong crash ball rucking to eventually dive over for the try and added the conversion to seal the game 16 - 12.

It is difficult to win on the road, and the team should feel proud of their achievement - I want to thank the 15 players who made the trip, and our supporters who travelled.

My only real criticism is to say that I still need to see us establish our game plan solidly early in the first half, before any individual players try individual things.
(Specifically, we had four kicks near the opposition 22 early in the first half, when I expected to see our ground crash/rucking attack).
We practice a certain style of play on Tuesday and Thursday, and I need to see that established during the game on Saturday, before we start adding in extra "bells and whistles".

The scorers were: Dan Loew - 3 penalties, 1 conversion. Stephen Ratliff - 1 try

Congratulations on the win - lets see another one when we play Kalamazoo at our field this Saturday, April 15th.

Since I expect lots more players to be available for this home game, we will be using our selection criteria of Practice and Game attendance, Dues Paid status, and Player Performance to decide on who plays where. If you are behind in your dues payments, now would be a good time to take care of that.


Special thanks to Gary Goidosik for his sponsorship - be sure to visit his website to support Gary's business.

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