This match, which was always going to be extremely difficult, was meant to be the game that was going to lift us out of the bottom portion of the table and leave us in a slightly better position in the table leading into the Christmas break. Unfortunately our Christmas present didn’t arrive and the team had to dig very deep in order to achieve a draw and get two points out of the game.
The team produced a lacklustre performance in the first half, which was consistent with the effort during the week, and found ourselves totally outplayed in all facets of the game. Aligned with this effort we turned over more possession and missed more tackles than we had in the two previous games, and after highlighting their areas of strength and weakness the night before we failed to capitalise on the fact that we had studied our opposition and were prepared to nullify them. Therefore we coughed up 14 unanswered points in the first half and it could have been more. As a result of the lack of physical preparation during the week it was highlighted that this match would test the team’s mental strength and at this stage in the game we hadn’t turned up mentally and physically.
An old rugby cliché states that the “game of rugby is a game of two halves” and this cliché was apparent in this game. Wanderers went about their business with far more urgency and accuracy in the second half and continually applied pressure on the opposition. This pressure didn’t initially turn into points however it challenged the Instonians discipline and that is where the matched turned in favour of Wanderers. Two yellow cards for Instonians enabled us to get back into this game and transfer the pressure into points. The boot of Daithi Fitzgerald and good initiative and strength allowed Brendan O’Brien too cross the whitewash. With 1 minute remaining Daithi Fitzgerald slotted over his final penalty to level the score and mean that the points were shared. A poor return from a poor day at the office.
This was an opportunity for Wanderers to drag ourselves out of the bottom part of the table and leave a little daylight between ourselves and other teams even temporarily. However we did not succeed and the only silver lining in an otherwise dull day was achieving two points from the game. We had set ourselves a target of getting at least 10 points from the 3 matches pre Christmas, we achieved 7 which left us short. Therefore it is back to the grindstone for the next couple of weeks before we tackle UCC on the 17th January. The team and management would like wish all members a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and thank you for your continued support.
