Griffon RFC News - 04/15/06

April 15th, 2006: Battle Creek Griffon 3 Kalamazoo 7.

A few game pictures here.
A loss, but one with a lot of positives for the Griffons. We had to make some positional adjustments before the game, and we took a while to find our flow. Kalamazoo started to dominate the scrum, and that continued to be a problem through the game. A couple of injuries in the first half meant changes at fly half and prop, so a few more adjustments were needed.
The low point of the game was the Kalamazoo try, where the Kazoo scrum half picked up from the base of the scrum and weaved his way through a few missed tackles to score. I think our lads will admit we had a poor tackling effort here. They converted for a lead of 7 - 0.
The Griffons had three penalty attempts, only converting one of the three , so instead of a 9 - 7 lead , we trailed 7 - 3.
There were two different styles of play, the Kazoo Dogs were looking to try quick tap penalties and throw the ball around - this backfired on them a few times where they were called back for not taking their penalties from the correct spot.
Our style of play meant less handling mistakes, but it also means we only have a few scoring chances against a good defensive team like the Dogs, who saw our plan quickly and adjusted their defence to stifle us. We need to really concentrate on those scoring chances and turn them into points.

With our scrum being moved around, and wheeled, our backs were on their heels which affected our kicking game, and allowed the Kazoo backs to play an "attack" defence to pressure our kicks. We can work on making adjustments so that we can still put ourselves down in the opponents 22 metre area. We will analyse this at practice.

On the positive side, we had a great effort and were always within a score of taking the game.
We made some very good adjustments during the game, one of which was stabilizing the scrum and even stealing a Kazoo put-in, and that is a very positive sign for the team - we were not scratching our heads after the game wondering what happened. With the pressure and better field position that Kazoo achieved, it is a credit to the Griffons that they only conceded one try to a team that plays in Division II.

Thanks to everyone who made themselves eligible to play by paying their dues. This will pay dividends for the Club into the future.

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

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