By HitR
October 8 2014
Scottish Stick the Knife into Albion A Rampant Second Half Performance by London Scottish Put Paid to Albion For the healthy and voluble Albion contingent it was a rather dispiriting day. For despite, in the main, out-singing a rather subdued Scottish crowd, they had very little to sing for. The first half was convincingly won, if the statistics are be to believed by Albion: fewer penalties conceded, more line breaks, fewer tackles missed, 65% possession and 53% territory. But….we were behind 21-16. Familiar story?
For all our endeavour and hard work, Scottish were the more clinical and made us pay for every mistake and it wan't untill we started to go route one with our centres that we begane to look as if we could match them. By then though, we were 14 - 3 downhaving conceded our trademark 'soft' tries. The first a floated pass by Rayner 35 seconds in, intercepted by Homan who ran unopposed under the posts, and second an excellent, but stoppable, mazy run by Millar who broke through two or three tackles to go over in the corner. Dissapointing.
Scottish use a very efficient blitz defence and it was causing Rayner a few distribution issues. When Shanners sent down the message to use the centres closer to the breakdown, tose issues were largely resolved with both Koteczky and Berridge breaking the line with the pack in attendance for support. This led to some goos phases, putting Scottish under pressure and leading them to concede nine penalties during the course of the first half. Raynor's highly efficient boot was 100% form again and gradually we reduced the arrears to 14 - 9.
More good work by the centres and the pack took us deep into the Scottish 22 and after a kick at goal wa eschewed in favour of a 5m lineout, the pack drove closer to the line. Quick thinking by Josh Davies, who threw a lovely dummy to outfox Neil Best led to a typical scrum half sniping try. Rayner kicked the extras and we were ahead 14 - 16.
Sadly, that was as good as it got.
Scottish, with the Bright, Best, Gidlow combination fashioned a scruffy try out of nothing and we went in at half time 21 - 16 down. But with all to play for. Or so we thought.
I wont dwell on the catastrophic second half, which contained all that has left us atthe foot of the table. Suffice to say, Scottish went on to score another seven tries, seemingly at will, the first coming seconds after the restart. We hoped it wan't a body blow, but it had that effect. Tackles were missed, errors made and yet, with every move, the lads never stopped trying. Too hard perhaps. We chased the game and threw the ball to them far too often.
Let's not take anything away from Scottish. They were brutally efficient and whilst our intensity seemd to have been dealt a blow by conceeding the early try, theirs, if anything, increased as they scented blood and we were unable to contain a confident sid ewith a passion for the kick chase.
What to do? Well, more of what we did in the first half when, after an appalling start we dragged our way back into the match with some intelligent play and patience. Unfortunately, the Albion of the second half were unrecognisable from that of the first.
It's clear to see that, in flashes, Albion produce some great rugby. But not for 80 minutes. We are lets be clear, in a relegation battle with only Moseley for bedfellows at the moment. Ever resillient Nottingham beat a good Leeds side and Bedford overcame Jersey. So we sit bottom with two points, Moseley one point above us.
The break couldn't come soon enough. A chance to regroup, the pressure of the league off for a moment, and the chance to use the B and I cup to gain some much needed confidence.
London Scottish 64 - 16 Plymouth Albion
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