Season Postscript

[markd]

Just looking at the bottom of the table, it shows what a tight season it was. Students manged 38% of the points available and finished bottom; Esher and Caldy both managed over 40%. I don't know how that compared to previous seasons, but all three can consider themselves very unlucky.

No team had more losing bonus points than Mose (9) although Caldy, Cambridge and Chinnor equalled it.

Seven teams scored more 4-try bonuses than Mose's 13, including Students who managed it an amazing 19 times.

Only the top 4 and Students scored more points than Mose's 768.

However, only Sale Chinnor and Students conceded more points than Mose's 857. I hope the emphasis with whatever players we manage to sign is on defence for next season.

Overall, it felt like a much worse season than some of the figures suggest.

Come on Mose!

[southernmose]

Apr 30, 2019 20:57:06 GMT markd said:

Just looking at the bottom of the table, it shows what a tight season it was. Students manged 38% of the points available and finished bottom; Esher and Caldy both managed over 40%. I don't know how that compared to previous seasons, but all three can consider themselves very unlucky.

No team had more losing bonus points than Mose (9) although Caldy, Cambridge and Chinnor equalled it.

Seven teams scored more 4-try bonuses than Mose's 13, including Students who managed it an amazing 19 times.

Only the top 4 and Students scored more points than Mose's 768.

However, only Sale Chinnor and Students conceded more points than Mose's 857. I hope the emphasis with whatever players we manage to sign is on defence for next season.

Overall, it felt like a much worse season than some of the figures suggest.

Come on Mose!

Overall, I think that's a very fair assessment - and certainly chimes with my feeling right through the season that if a few more of the breaks had gone our way then we would have been very competitive. Points against doesn't really lie, but then again neither does points for and bonus points. I also note from TRP on Sunday that James Williams tops National 1 for points scored.

Thank God we had him, and a few of the others.

 If I were to do an autopsy on the season, I think we had a squad of exactly the right players to give us a shout of a promotion challenge, which was hamstrung by lack of depth, a horrendous run of injuries, and the army players not being available for the run in.

Throughout the season, barring the odd blow out (even there, I think we only came away pointless 6 times in 30 matches...) we looked like giving most teams a game home and away so it has to be losing on the fine margins and certainly, as I don't think anyone will disagree, we got into a habit of letting sides back in and past us in the last 10 mins.

We need to scout out some good youngsters on their way up, and meld them with more seasoned campaigners. The pack lacked wise old heads at the start of the season until Caves came back. We started the season IMO with a lot of Sams and not enough been-there-done-that in the forwards (centres and backs less so). That got sorted out as the season went on but we went in undercooked. Youth then, and add some warhorses on their way down from the Championship/Prem. 

I'm not sure the pre-season games really helped us, prepared us, or told us much that we didn't already know. They did however break some of our likely first choicers for months...

The army guys were great, and I'd happily have back pretty well all the ones that were on the books this time out (obviously Mr Bean is going to Saints). Overall though I wouldn't be rushing to sign any more. I get that they're cheap, but we really need to be going for a squad (on our budget) that we can wring everything out of ourselves without losing them for great chunks of the season. Particularly when few other teams in the league are doing likewise. Thanks for all their efforts when they were available though, they might just have made the difference for us over the course of the season.

Good luck to the new regime, hopefully we won't be having to do this at the end of next season. 

Overall, I would say that we missed out on finishing clear top half by the finest of margins. That's not to say everyone's blameless for nearly getting relegated, but look back at the final scores over the season and we really weren't far off. The lesson is that this league gets more competitive by the season, and "really not far off" won't cut it, we need to aim, train, play and support higher.

[observer]

Both the summaries chime with my view of the season...…….if I got round to it, I'd find out whether we topped 'the table' for scoring 3 tries (only) in a match. I got the feeling (might be proved wrong) that a good proportion of our games featured 3 tries meaning we missed out on TB whilst also missing out on LB.

[Communications Team]

May 2, 2019 6:23:19 GMT observer said:

Both the summaries chime with my view of the season...…….if I got round to it, I'd find out whether we topped 'the table' for scoring 3 tries (only) in a match. I got the feeling (might be proved wrong) that a good proportion of our games featured 3 tries meaning we missed out on TB whilst also missing out on LB.

10 games with 3 tries scored

[kenclegg]

Not sure if the results bear it out but it certainly felt a lot more positive in the second half of the season

[Communications Team]

May 2, 2019 13:08:49 GMT kenclegg said:

Not sure if the results bear it out but it certainly felt a lot more positive in the second half of the season

32 Points in first half of season 36 in second half

5 wins to 6

[CJB1]

Slightly disappointingly, we could only manage the double against two other teams, Cambridge and Esher. We took 8 points off the former, and 10 off the latter. Next best home and away results were against Chinnor (7 points) and Roth (6). No team blanked us both times, though we managed only one point from two games against Ampthill, Blackheath, Cinderford and Old Elthamians. Of our eleven wins, seven were five-pointers. But it's the number of LBP - nine - that is telling, since converting those into even four-point wins would have made a world of difference.