Interesting local derby!

[Number 16]

Entertaining pre-season game between two clubs only four or five miles apart;

Brixton Bulls 56 South London Silverbacks 18.

Forty-five players turned out - great effort all round.

[bbfaz]

Tough day at the office.  Played well but got killed by fresh legs.  Learning experience for some, a few RL debutants on our side.

[Number 16]

12 hours ago, bbfaz said:

a few RL debutants on our side.

Yeah! I noticed a few of the forwards when tackled instinctively lay the ball back for a ruck, and then one of the halves kicked for touch on a 20m restart. Still plenty of education to be done, but they kept at it until the end.

For the Bulls, I understand, it was pretty much last year's U17s, so a great performance from them.

[bbfaz]

They also had players from Croydon under-18s too apparently.  It's about know-how.  They picked on a weakness and not only won the game off the back of it but also ran up the score.  After two of our players got injured, they essentially had 10 more guys.

But yeah... it's tough.  Union is messing us up at the minute.  People want to play but then it's this argument over where their bread is buttered.  For instance, we have four experienced creative players who could fill in at hooker, scrum half and stand off.  Three are fighting relegation at their union clubs, one is trying to get promotion.  One guy gets paid when he plays 1sts and he's first choice due to injury.  One relegated club has an injury crisis and is trying to get to the end of the season without further point deductions so they're picking anybody who is fit.  Next week might be easier.  We essentially had two second rows on the wing.

All things considered, the consensus is that it was a decent performance.  The centres are coming along, as is the stand-off, who was actually earmarked for full-back.  It's a process, I suppose.  We don't expect to dominate straight away but by the end of the month, things will ease off and we can hopefully get all the best players back and working together.