A fixture at long last !

After a weather enforced break of 2 months, we travelled down to Preston Grasshoppers.

Preston asked if we could split our large group into experienced and less experienced and they'd do the same.

In the experienced game, our players played as a team of players, rather than individuals and the results were a pleasure to see.
The forwards did the 'hard work' taking the ball up and commiting the PGH forwards to contact. We recycled the ball well (especially in the ruck) and our SH go the ball out quickly. Our FH got the back line moving forwards, with the result being that our IC was already moving at pace when he got the ball, comitting 2 players to tackle him down -- on this day, his offloading was good and with a choice of players to pass inside and outside of him, our backline was able to attack the spaces that they'd created. It was a simple game plan, which worked well on the day.
Prestons attacks seemed to come from around the fringes of scrums, mauls and rucks and today our players had their "tackling heads" on and defended strongly. On several occassions we were able to rob the ball in mauls, counter ruck or take advantage of balls that had been dislodged in contact. Our forwards did a great job of rumbling the ball up a bit, sucking in defenders and then getting the backs involved.
A real team effort.

For the 2nd game. Our less experienced team took on PGH's less experienced team. However, PGH didn't have as many inexperienced palyers as they thought and several of the 'old and the bold' joined them.
Doing this meant that we could get the game going, but it did rather kill it as a contest.
In the 2nd half, PGH put the 'old hands' on the fringes of the team and the game became a lot more even.
Results wise, PGH came out on top of this one, but the effort and attitude of the Kendal players was excellant.

It was at this stage that PGH called 'time'.

As we had a full turnout, a pitch and decent weather, we decided to have an additional game amongst ourselves.
What was instantly noticeable was that the effort went downhill right from the first whistle. Players didn't commit to rucks, the tackling was half hearted and if the ball went to ground, people looked at it like it was an alien artifact.
On the plus side, Kian discovered a streak within himself that he'd previously kept very quiet - and it was an absolute pleasure to watch him make some bullocking runs, handing off players and driving onwards towards the line with fire in his eyes.

Hopefully the worst of the weather is behind us now and we can look forward to our next fixture against Vale of Lune & Upper Eden