Thanks for an excellent report in my view on the Moseley website .
Although, to me the Northampton lads as a team seemed bigger, faster, more drilled and even 'professional', I was impressed by the way that our lads stuck to it in the face of what must have been a very depressing task indeed , especially when they were clearly near exhaustion and the opposition seemed able to score at will in the last quarter .
I'm not sure what being an 'academy' is or what this series of matches is all about. Presumably it means a lot more time and training, in the case of a Premiership club by top quality professional coaches? If so, I would wonder what we were doing at that level were it not for the fact that we seem to do well against Championship Academies.
I must add that I thoroughly enjoy the under nineteen Colts matches when I can and it is good to see that we have some considerable talent hopefully coming forward to the first team in due course.
Rick, I didn't see the game but by all accounts it sounds like a pretty torrid afternoon the Colts encountered. Having said that, it would seem they battled to the end and enormous credit must be given to them, as you have rightly intimated. We have to remember that prem academies attract the 'creme de la creme' of the age group, who also enjoy the very best coaching and playing environments, I'm sure if we had the same set up our lads would be able to compete on a more even keel. Sadly we don't, so it's a credit to the coaches and youngsters to have the balls to entertain a fixture against such a professional outfit. We are exceptionally competitive in our own league judging by the table and let's not forget that in the past, academies have come hunting for our young talent, so we are doing something right. We seem to consistently get to the latter stages of the Colts Cup which is a great indication of the home grown talent we have, remember the 1st XV visit to Franklin Gardens a few seasons ago, that scoreline wasn't too dissimilar! The Colts sound like a good bunch of lads that will take it on the chin and try and take more positives out of the encounter than negatives.
Thanks for that ale - I fully agree with you that the Colts are indeed "a good bunch of lads that will take it on the chin".
In fact there were times during the match that were absolutely heart breaking. Twice we were right on the Saints' line when they broke away and scored at the other end and on three or four occasions it wasn't worth our while to get back behind the line for the conversion. All credit to them for keeping their heads up.
You're also right that we are exceptionally competative in our own league - I don't think we've lost a match so far. Saturday's match made me wonder at the time though whether it's right to put young guys through such a depressing experience morale wise, however I suppose it will let them know just where they stand in the scheme of things after so many wins and is one of the character building aspects of this great game.
Btw, the spectator support was much better than usual, possibly thanks to the headline billing in Moseley Matters. Let's hope it continues to grow, particularly when they don't clash with a first team match.
It is great to have some feed back to give to the colts, yes it was a heavy defeat but, as the lads said themselfs, our mistakes were punished heavily by a very good saints side who defended very well, had we had taken those early second half chances who knows. Our colts can only get better by playing teams this good and they certainly picked up on what they did well for us to take forward into our game. So Saturday is key, a good win with a bonus point against worcester secures the North Mids saturday league title, a win means we only need a point from our last game against Stourbridge in January to win the league. The guys will be going all out on saturday to win it this week, nothing better than winning the title at home.
Looking forward to that - let's hope for a rebound!
I'll be there, cheering them on and I hope there will be lots of support - snow permitting - given the very convenient timing and the headlinig in Moseley Matters
I sometimes think that, good though this board is, most people head straight for the 1st team topic and miss what's going on elsewhere. Need to sneak the occasional promo in there I guess.
