Since this was a festival; Coach Jean-louis experimented a little bit. Mitch Fenton had his debut as a hooker – no joke. Ryan Hunter played some center and Charlie Martel was slated to try some flanker. We also had two Exiles alumni to lend us a hand on the pitch – Archie Cullen & Jacques La Fonta.

Archie was given a half since he had to leave for work. He managed to score two trys and dish a nice off load to Mitch Fenton for a try assist. Not bad for a little over 20 minutes work. Jacques used his toe to try for some territorial gains, but we need our backs to sprint much faster downfield to challenge for possession or be in position to tackle counterattacking opponents before they get a chance to get any momentum.

We probably could have scored more, there was some good attack phases with multiple passes; but our backs were way too flat too often – causing them to slow down or stop to receive the ball – or worse having the ball passed behind them and give Virginia Beach a chance to steal a loose ball. A sideline observer commented on our team; “Too many one handed passes and attempts to run by himself (themselves).”

Our tackling was much better and we went after possession of loose balls much better than previous games. Our backline alignment was ok; but did not pressure them enough. Our defensive speed seemed lacking; forcing our backrow to force the opponents wings out of bounds. Wings also were getting sucked in to tackle interior backs leaving an uncovered Beach player to be in position to take an offload and race down the sideline. We just gave them too much room to maneuver. On the other hand, Charlie Martel playing flanker returned the favor. He took the ball off of a ruck and drew in the Beach defender then calmly offloaded to winger Seamus McDonald who raced it in virtually untouched – great generosity by Martel for an easy Exile try.

Perhaps, I am quibbling here since we kept control of the match for most of the time, but we did commit 9 penalties to only 3 against Beach. One series of penalties is when we were defending our goal line right near the end of the first half but these hurt. For those that were called – think about what caused the whistle and how you can correct it. If you are not sure, ask a coach to explain.

Practicing as a team on breakdowns and rucks appears to have helped; as forwards and backs attacked and defended as a unified team overall – not two separate units.

Great Job Exiles. Let me know if any factual inaccuracies so the record can be corrected.