Domination

We went into the game on the back of our best performance of the season, had we been playing Gorseinon 5 weeks ago the result might have been a lot closer, but not now, the youth team have pulled together following a faltering start to the season that included bans, injuries and poor attendance at training, it now seems that we have put those behind us, but still suffer from the old chestnuts of not being clinical
Gorseinon who have in the last few seasons been dominant at Youth level, but have now suffered from the same fate we did 4 seasons ago a lack of players coming through into youth, that is where the sympathy ends as all clubs who have been round long enough know junior and youth rugby is cyclical one year you are up the next you are down,
From the start we dominated and were unlucky not to score in the opening exchanges, an early penalty shot was pulled by Jac, but that was not to matter when within 10 minutes continued domination led to our first try from Sam Clarke who had a strong game all round, his try in the far right corner was converted with ease by Jac, our pack was utterly dominant and it was only through good defence by Gorseinon and what can be called very loose play by all our players in possession were we prevented from running in tries, all too often we took the risky pass or didn't wait for support or take the ball on too far, this was frustrating too watch as it was the theme throughout the game, and in the 2nd half added the extra dimension of loose aimless kicking from numerous players where calmness was order of the day, it come to something when the coaches biggest gripe is that we should have won by more. It seems that we play like this in games when the scrums are passive beyond our control as our structure gets too loose, and defences are tighter.
We kept dominating and after 25 minutes we had a phase of play that took us from our 10 yard line with various runners and support players to suddenly hit the blind with good hands to put Gwillym into the far right corner again converted with ease by Jac.
Throughout the game the most impressive part of our game was our defence and on the odd occasions where we were pressurised deep in our half we made our tackles, turned the ball over and cleared our lines, and to not concede for the 2nd time in 3 games is impressive, last season it was more like not scoring for 2 in 3 games. With the season moving forward so the team spirit and understanding is also moving forward.
Unfortunately in the first half we had 2 injuries 1 to Aaron who has been like a demon in the last few games getting injured whilst being dominant in attack, hopefully his ankle will heal quickly and with Rhys who seems far more comfortable in the Outside centre slot where he has more time on the ball, this time getting injured in defence; where he has been closing his opposite men down with ease. Hopefully his shoulder injury will heal quickly, with the Xmas break coming he should be injury free by the New Year.
So we entered the second half again dominating from the start, and within 10 minutes Gwillym went on a massive 2 yard charge to slide over, the conversion from the same position as the earlier penalty kick was missed. We kept pressing and dominating and were awarded our bonus point try when Ben Ley slid over this being converted by Jac, we were 26 nil up with quarter of an hour to go , we were never in any danger of losing but couldn't get up to finish Gorseinon off, we had a perfectly good try disallowed from a knock on (not) the result of some good handling , with 10 minutes to go that would have given us the freedom to press for more but it only seemed to lead us to make some decision s in attack that we would not make on any other day.
At the end of the day our unease (disappointment is too harsh) in our performance was out weighed by the result and the 80% of our play that was good , it is a positive that as a squad we know we left a lot out there, and we can pick it up in the next game.
We need to focus on that and make sure we do not lose sight of how far we have come, and how may more gears we have still yet to use, we are no longer driving a Robin Reliant.