Decimated by injury and illness, no less than 6 props took the field on this cold and windswept day. The guys all fronted up mightily and although we lost in the end 17-10 we were in the match all day long and had our chances to pull off a victory against an unbeaten team.

Discipline and patience are two words that we've been struggling with all season but we showed great amounts of both throughout the match. I'm not sure what the penalty count was but it was definitely low single digits against us and on both attack and defence we showed excellent patience. Our one try of the match was scored a whisker before half time after long periods of patient phase based build-up. Mert eventually crashed over for the try and Asher Glynn slotted the conversion.

Aside from the wrecking ball running at 12 for the opposition our defence was also good. Many times we were outnumbered and we managed to hang on desperately and force the opposition to push the last pass and cough it up.

It was hardly flowing champagne rugby, our set pieces were excellent with a couple of hugely dominating scrums and TT seemed to end with the ball in his hands mopping up from the opposition lineout all day long.

Man of the match Theo Fontaine was a beast at 12, bone crunching hits on defence and equally impressive with ball in hand. By the end of the match his shoulder was showing the battle scars so I hope he makes a swift recovery and it was just a stinger.

Silky was his usual self, looked dangerous on attack and solid in partnership with Theo in the midfield. Notable other performances from Olli Bos and Asher Glyn in the halves stepping into the breach and looking solid and assured. Dick of the day to Ollie Bos for forgetting his trousers.

The forward pack to a man were excellent all day long, typical bullocking runs from Michael, Mert and Lysander ably supported by Elliot on the flank. Chappers and TT rolling back the years as they do every week clattering into anything that moved around the ruck.

Wrapping up, while I don't like the phrase honourable in defeat, it definitely describes the events of the day. From a coaching perspective seeing the calmness which we played with (especially with new combinations, youth and many of us out of position) was excellent.

Match highlights can be found here:
https://www.pitchero.com/clubs/ucsrugby/teams/262892/match-centre/1-10554569/events