I’m Fired!

A match with local rivals Caldy is always highly contested. After two wins earlier in the season we knew that we would have a battle on our hands as Caldy have strengthened their line-up throughout the course of the year.

After considering numerous different positional arrangements and changing my mind at the last minute, it turns out that I got it wrong! Cudda, Wudda, Shudda! Caldy started with the wind and used it to their advantage successfully with their new speedy centre capitalising on the opportunities they created as Wirral left themselves exposed at the back on several occasions with Hayesie on his own and nowhere to go. Early on Wirral had a penalty in the Caldy half choosing to run it rather than take the early lead with kickable points and ultimately came away empty handed. Cudda, Wudda, Shudda!

Wirral decided not to use their usual tactic of lulling the oppo into a false sense of security by not bothering to ruck for the first hour and actually came out of the blocks from the first whistle. I don’t think we’ll use this tactic again as it clearly doesn’t work. Neither will we win the majority of the scrums, many against the head and I don’t think we will compete so much in the line-out as it clearly isn’t worth it!

In the second half Wirral had Caldy pinned to their 5m line for most of the time and Caldy rarely got out of their 22........except to score a breakaway try of course. Wirral failed to capitalise on the pressure with handling errors and a few mistakes. Caldy must be given credit for a robust defence whilst Wirral need to be more clinical and co-ordinated with their finishing.

It was a good solid win for Caldy although the scoreline perhaps suggests the traffic was all one way which was not the case. Unfortunately there did appear to be a traffic jam at the Caldy try line.

Congratulations to Jonathan and the team for a well deserved win and good luck in the Final. Thanks also to the ref who did a sterling job.

We will be back next season stronger. Cudda, Wudda, Shudda!

(PS- I was so engrossed in us trying to get some points on the board that I failed to recognise the timing and missed the opportunity to get everyone on the pitch - sorry guys - we have one more match and will provide game time for all)