Jan 14 - M2 Holt 3 (A)

L 22 - 14  Report attached

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Wymondham returned to action after the long Christmas break a week later than most Merit 3 teams, travelling across to Holt who were in high spirits having beaten title contenders Lakenham & Hewitt the week before.  Marty had to be at his very best on the phone in the week due to many members from the pool of players being unavailable, of course he delivered with Wym 3's taking 15 and couple of subs to the coast.

The game kicked off and the early exchanges showed that this was going to be a hard fought match with no quarter given.  Holt having knocked their seasonal breaks ring-rust off the week previous found that their passes were going to hand and sticking, this made it easier for them to build continuity in their play.  The organisation show by Wym across the 3/4 line from set pieces and break downs, with Doc's marshalling, was impeccable and Holt found it impossible to breach even when releasing their sizeable strike runner in the centres.  However without a real presence of pace through the forwards Wym struggled to force turnover's and were often pinged for going off feet, hands in ruck after arriving too late to effectively compete for the ball.  This may sound a harsh criticism, but the dominance the size and power of Wym pack offers great stability for scrums and lineout's, the trade off is a sacrifice when the game becomes fractured, open and up tempo.  It was no surprise then that Holt's first score of the game would come from a quick tap and go penalty, Wym players were slow to get up & retreat the 10, preferring to stand around while questioning the reffing decision, Holt exploited the vast gap the left by the players and cantered through for an easy 5 points, conversion missed.

From the re-start Wym pack began to dictate the tempo of the game as the recycling of the ball became more efficient and the errors present in the first 20minutes dissipated, Billy Duffin at 10 utilized the possession to give Midgley and Rod coming in from fullback ball moving forward, allowing them to come from deep at pace and break would be tackles.  Holt's young flankers offered covering tackles but as the pressure mounted they were forced to infringe time and again as Wym edged every closer to the line.  From a scrum 5 yards out it looked very likely a push over try was on the cards, Holt again had to infringe and the yellow card was produced.  It was Wym's turn to tap and go as Pape took the ball up and the forwards piled in, Dave Sillet hanging off the back moved to the left ready for 2nd phase crash and in so doing drew the outstanding tacklers over to him, Gav Ardrie saw the movement and picked and drove right into the space for a well earned 5 points, Duffin stepped up and hit the conversion.  Half finished 5-7

Half time team talk revolved around need for concentration and focus, when Wym stopped the silly penalties and dictated the tempo of the game we clearly had the upper hand, sensible heads would see the game closed out.   One could imagine Holt's half time talk went along the lines of get it wide and stretch the organised defence, speed the tempo of the match to knock us off our stride.  The match re-started much the same as the first half, no quarter given in the physical exchanges with both sets of backs being give decent ball to move through the hands and make yards.  The game was very evenly balance and it was hard to see who was going to make the break through when a confusion at a penalty award gifted a try under the sticks.  The ball was on halfway and Holt player tackled fell the wrong was and was going to be turned over so he hung on to the ball, ref blew clearly indicated penalty to Wym (even said holding on the ground).  As players picked themselves off, majority of Holt retreat the 10, covering touch for the expected kick, the Holt fly halfy who was last to pick himself up asked the ref what the decision was, "Penalty to you" said the ref...tap and go went the 10 and he ran past the standing Wym players.  None of us chased him, we assumed he was doing the old trick of buying his team mates a couple more seconds to get ready by faking a tap and go, so when he slid under the posts and the ref gave the try there were a fair few astonished faces, to be fair to the Holt lads i was standing next too they were equally as perplexed, but were not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Conversion actually shanked wide so 10-7 the score

Reeling from that score Wym got back to playing rugby but unfortunately the challenging of the ref subsequent to this incident described above increased which often cancelled out the good endeavours of the team.  Eventually some strong ball carry by Matty Brighton & Sillet in the forwards and Midgely & Tom Morris in the backs saw Wym again camped near the Holt try line, the dominance in the scrum was again apparent as a clean heel by Brett Larke and control by Papey at 8 saw a touchdown from a push over.  Conversion slotted 10-14

As the match clocked ticked by, 15miutes left from Wym score, Holt began to throw caution to the wind running from deep and speeding the match tempo.  As had already been proven Wym were susceptible to tap and go penalties and Holt exploited this not once but twice in the closing stages running over 2 try's from 60yards against a fractured and dog legged defensive line and once Billy Duffin was lost to a nasty cut on the head the game was all but done as Holt ran out 22-14 winners (i think)

Summary of the the game from a Wymondhams prospective was best summed up by Gav Ardrie who said there was a bit of ring rust there but we seemed intent to lose focus on the rugby and argue with the ref and leave the door open for Holt to run through.  Positives from the game were plenty, 3/4 line organisation from set plays was solid in attack and defence, line out & scrums very effective, however lack of communication (except to the ref) and discipline left us second best in broken play and credit has to go to Holt for recognising and exploiting this.  Back 10 and face up has to be the mantra for next weeks fixture!