wire-quin wrote:
Sounds like a very disappointing second half. ? 6 tries conceded.
Was actually 8 tries conceded in the second half (plus two disallowed). Think the key to the game was that we (Fev) didn't capitulate during the early stages when when London had all the ball, London's completion rate in the first half was excellent and it was about half an hour before we had a play the ball inside their 20. I hadn't read much about it before but there does seem to be a slope at Ealing that I thought had an impact on the game, London made good yards in the first half but struggled to do so in the second half whereas we found it tough in the first half but rolled downfield at will in the second.
Both teams were missing key players and I'm sure the League rematch will be a very different kettle of fish, but from our point of view it was fantastic how we rallied round having lost Channing and Thackeray in the first half hour, which meant we were playing without our two regular centres, our two regular halfbacks and our regular hooker, with John Davies switching from hooker to second row to half back within the space of 10 minutes, but our fringe players such as Day and Cooper really stepped up. I saw London's win over Halifax & thought London badly missed Slyney & Ioane but was surprised how easy we found it to score in the second half, it looked like a try was on the cards every time we were in the London half.
Still, we start at 0-0 again a week on Monday, should be a cracker, hopefully with a bigger crowd, there will certainly be more from Fev that day.
