Southampton 2s v US Portsmouth 2s

Match report by Mark Mauger

It was the start of a new season in the Merit League and we were hosting US Portsmouth. From the kick off we let the ball bounce, it was like we were still on the bus - although we were playing at home! For some reason we just didn’t wake up to playing together.

We weren’t as fit as our opposition and it seemed that they were everywhere that we weren’t and they scored a quick one through missed tackles.

But we did keep our shape for most of the game and the forwards did well in the loose, although the backs were a bit wishy-washy with only Alex Scott doing the straight running to make yardage. They did put in some good tackles though, stopping US going through all the time and holding it up long enough for the forwards to get there to help out.

At half time it was only 12-0 to them and in the 2nd half we started to get things together, forwards and backs, and with some good lines of running from Alex working with Bunney we came close on a couple of occasions.

It was on one of these that the ball come back to the forwards and with a driving maul from a good 10m out young Neil Howe, our stand in hooker for the day, got the ball down for our score of the day.

Unfortuneately Ben Wanamaelu was sin binned for trying to stop someone's head falling off with his hand, which the ref mistakenly thought was a slap! Five minutes later and Bunney was sent for another infringement taking us down to 13 men, which is when they managed to run in quick tries.

Despite the scoreline, a lot can be taken from this game. If we were to train together we would react together in difficult situations and work together as a team to keep the opposition away from our try line.

We will get better as we play together more and become settled as a team. Let's just stick together lads and talk to each other on and off the pitch and take things forward from here.

Well done lads.