The Day After

Taking stock of the Boys game twenty-four hours later.
First off things I was impressed by:
1) Set play defense. On both sides of the ball the teams were able too mostly contain the opposition from set play, especially from scrums and line outs.
2) Mauling. With minimum practice time with each team there was only a finite amount of things to work on before the game on Saturday. The Corvallis team worked on mauls off of lineouts and then executed them perfectly on the two attempts they made, good strip good drive and the ball came out clean. When most mauls at this level degrade into a mass of bodies tying up a ball with no drive it was a nice victory for the boys from Corvallis.
3) Kicking for points. Despite the fact that as a whole team LBRFC only converted about 60 percent of their kicks it was still an inspiring effort when at least 4 different players were able to put the ball over the post.
4) Open play offense. Much to the chagrin of the Corvallis coach the Albany club thoroughly outplayed Corvallis in this aspect. The majority of tries scored by Albany came not on the first phase after a scrum or lineout but on the second or even third phase as the backs made the most of open fields and weak side play.
5) New players. Specifically new player tackling but quite honestly throughout the game new players turned out promising performances all game long. Despite some players playing in their first game or playing on just a week or two of practice they played smart, safe and all seemed to contribute at one time or another.
6) Experienced players. Here there is a split, the Albany side was impressive in how well the experienced players meshed and played together, as the more trialed back line dominated throughout the game and the forwards provided clean ball (usually) back to them it all came together in a dominating effort. The Corvallis side had experienced players take the lead and move the ball aggressively, keeping the greener players organized and helping to have them in position to make plays.