Poor tackling gets rammed down throats
IT DOES not matter who you are playing against, there is no excuse for missing tackles, a frustrated Jordan Reynolds stressed on Saturday.
Rams showed exactly why they are the runaway National Two South leaders in a 59-8 win over Raiders at Footes Lane, but the Guernsey coach was disappointed with his side’s display, especially in defence.
‘I guess we’ll have to start by apologising. Once again we had a really fantastic crowd but we just didn’t really play that well,’ was his immediate assessment.
‘The first half kind of summed it up. We talked at half-time about how poor some of our tackling was, we were just allowing them to run at us – there were a few guys out there today who didn’t want to be there I think.
‘It’s a shame, but I guess that shows the situation we’re in at the moment. We’re not missing one or two key players, we are missing 12 of our best and I think that reflected today.’
Rams, who have lost just one of 21 league games this season, were not a physically imposing side, but they were full of pace and power.
However, Reynolds believes his side gifted their visitors some of their tries.
‘I think it was 50% that they were attacking well, I think it was 50% that we were defending poorly.
‘It was always going to be the case that they would be a strong side – you don’t win 17 games straight without being pretty handy at this level – and they have been able to pick from the same teamsheet week in, week out.
‘That’s probably the difference between where they’re at and where we’re at.
‘Defensively, we’ve got to be a lot better and the problem is I don’t really have any players coming back either.’
Match report in Monday's Guernsey Press.
