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We travelled 18 strong up to Aberdeen, MD on Saturday to face North Bay in our first league match. The pitch was hard, the sun shone bright, and we wore a mix bag of white jerseys. North Bay started off the scoring with a drop kick which was answered in kind by a penalty kick by Cisco Jimenez. North Bay controlled the ball much of the first half with some good rucking for which we had no answer. They would try to swing the ball wide but our backline was stout in defense and kept them from breaking through. The times they did break through, they would feed the ball back inside to their massive 8 man who would crash back and sometimes through our defense. Our lineouts started out good but once they figured out we weren't throwing past the first jumper, they were able to anticipate our throws. We were pushed a bit in the scrums but hey, we hadn't had but maybe 5 scrum downs prior to the match. At halftime, the score was 16-3 in favor of North Bay.
The second half was much better. We were able to neutralize the scrums, sometimes even pushing them back. Our foward work was much better as we kept the ball more active and didn't go down in the tackles. We were able to adjust our lineouts winning a few more but losing the crucial ones (like inside their 22 meter line.). The backs had a tougher go of it but it was not their fault! The North Bay was consistently offsides, at times their flyhalf was in our flyhalf, Matt Shaw's, face before the ball! But it wasn't to be our day, North Bay scored once more to finish the scoring off at 25-3.
Upsides: We only had a handful of stupid penalties. I believe a total of 5 or less. The forwards ball handling in the second half was good. Fitness(?), well they seemed more gassed then we did at the end of the second half. 18 players travelled, a step up from the 13 against Winchester last May.
Downsides: Fitness, it can always be better. Lineouts. Scrummages. Their lineouts, we didn't match or man-up on the players they pulled out of the line-outs and if we did, it didn't stop them.
This weekend it is the big payback for Pax River. They took advantage of us in our first season last spring. Time to give them a beating!
Congratulations to our Man of the Match, Matt "Bucket" McCarton! (Thanks to Danny O'hara for the picture.)
Pictures of the match, courtesy of Jeff "Cooter" Frankston's camera and several picture takers at the match.
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