I will cross post this on the CAS forum.
Tough day in many ways for TAS against Cranbrook. I arrived late and missed the early matches so started with 16Av16A. Cranbrook won something like 60-0. They were bigger, faster and more skilled, although TAS maintained the intensity of its tackling for much of the game. Listening to some of the junior boys coming up to watch the 16As I had the feeling, I may be incorrect, that there were high scores in some of the earlier games. Don't know however.
The match between TAs 2nds and Cranbrook thirds was good evenly matched football. Cranbrook scored very early, 7-0. It then took TAS 15 minutes to score and convert. HT score 7-7. Cranbrook scored early in the second half but then TAS started to run away with the game. Final score TAS 28 - Cranbrook 14. The last time I played on the Horden Oval for TAS seconds, this time against Crabrook seconds, we won too!
My heart sank as the Cranbrook Firsts ran onto the field. I had a lot about the team on the forums. They are big and also very fast. Cranbrook scored and converted at the third minute. Twenty five minutes later, the score was 33-0. Cranbrook were winning TAS line-outs, won several scrums against the feed and were pinching TAS ball in the rucks. TAS then steadied and were attacking at half time. HT score 33-0. Cranbrook scored soon after the break and then twice more, but it was a little more even. Final score 52-0.
Two things stopped the game being a total rout. The first was the number of penalties Cranbrook attracted. This was a feature of all three matches i saw, but especially the Firsts. I could wish that TAS did more goal kicking rather than relying on pick and drive. The second was the TAS tackling. With big fast backs playing against smaller boys, you often only have one chance to stop the movement. TAS tackled its heart out, time and again stopping movements, sometimes just before the line. The second half score of Cranbrook 19-TAS 0 would have been a cricket score without that.
The lessons? Chatting around the ground, Cranbrook feels that they can win the CAS. I think that's right so long as they can get the penalty count down. For TAS's part, it's a young team, all the top TAS teams seem young, reduced by injury. on the long bus trip home tonight the boys will be a bit sore and sorry. I don't think that they should be depressed. There are things that need to be fixed, but for the firsts in particular who maintained their intensity in the face of what may be CAS's first grade team, that spirit gives them, I think, a solid base for coming games.
