What a disappointing day of rugby, we as a Colts group dished up at Granville on Saturday. The bus breaking down on the way to the ground was probably the least of the calamities on the day, and was definitely a sign of things to come.

3rd Grade started the day with what may have been their worst performance of the season. We’ve learnt that there are ways to beat teams like Parramatta, who have big powerful ball running players, and there are ways to lose to them. The game was completely unstructured and played in a way that was not only the opposite of the coaches’ instructions, but not how we’ve trained over the past six months.

Taking on the big Parramatta forwards through the A,B & C channels wasn’t smart, when we need to be hitting it up a bit wider, and getting the ball to fast men out wide. Too often we had forwards in the back line, and this prevented some potential mis-match opportunities for our backs against their slower players, but also left the forwards short-handed for the grunt work at the break down. At times, the backs weren’t realigning, and they ended up standing flat footed, resulting in zero movement forward in defence. And having four players back for the kick when Parramatta don’t generally kick the ball, just added to the pressure on the other defenders. Then, unfortunately we received yellow card for swearing at the referee just after half-time, which really put the cherry on top.

2nd Grade certainly played a much better game but still kept Parramatta in the game with periods of playing a sort of ‘going nowhere’ rugby. The players need to understand that if you can put the game out of an opposition’s reach, the game itself becomes easier, and this is especially the case against a big side like Parramatta. We had a perfect opportunity to push the score to 13-0 with a penalty right in front of the posts, and what should have been a gift three points. However, After what seemed to be a board meeting without a chairman, the decision was made to take a tap against a well-set and willing defence, and after two phases we lost the ball. Parramatta went down field courtesy of a long run by their centre, and a couple of phases later they scored under the posts, and they were right back in the game at 10-7. We’re not that good that we can pass up these simple scoring opportunities, that not only put the team further ahead, but mean that we get the ball back from the kick-off.

2nd Grade put some very nice passages of play together during the match, and the boys showed a lot of heart to grind out an ugly, but nonetheless important win, together with the crucial four-try bonus point. Improvement is needed for next week’s massive game against Easts.

1sts were looking to rebound from a couple of losses, and even though we scored early with a nice try to Nick Peterson, things just didn’t look right. We looked slow and off the pace in every aspect. We were losing the breakdown battle against a very committed Parramatta team, and our defence was not moving forward with any speed. Our backs were shallow in attack, and were just crashing the ball up, and that approach didn’t seem to create any problems for the Parramatta defence.

Parramatta just played their bash and barge usual game, but with the addition of some finesse in the midfield, and speed and power out wide, and pretty soon they’d racked up four tries, and 20-7 lead. We were in all sorts of trouble and Parramatta weren’t going to back off, so it was going to take a huge effort to get out of the mess.

We did manage to get to within a point of them at one stage, with the score 25-24 to Parramatta, and at that stage I really thought our superior fitness would kick in and get us home. But the mental side of a game is king, and in the end Parramatta were up for the game, and we were still at home in bed mentally, and Parramatta scored another three to zero to walk away with a great win.

The worst part of the score line is the Parramatta kicker only landed one conversion from nine attempts!!

I have to be totally honest and say this was right up there among the worst days in my 21 years of Colts rugby. The only redeeming point is that we get to play again next week against Easts who, hopefully, will bring out the best in us.

As a Colts group we know how good we can play, as we’ve already shown this season, even in defeat.However, we seem to have gone off the boil and I’ve noticed that the numbers have dropped slightly at training, with a few more excuses than usual about not being able to train. On top of the already significant number of players on the injured list, this is causing some disruption to our team patterns and cohesion at training. The coaches, managers and physio are still turning, up and training is organised and planned, so lets get our mojo back and get stuck into the training – its no coincidence that when we were focused as a Colts group, we were going along nicely, but we’ve dropped the ball a bit and we’re losing to teams we should beat. As Don Mackinnon and Michael Black have said, it’s the 1%ers that we’re falling down on, and that goes back to our training.

Getting beaten by Parramatta at their home ground, which is known among the wider rugby community as Death Valley, is not the end of the world – I’ve had some bad days there, even as a player, and Parramatta has been our bogey club at Colts for the past few years. Back in 2014, when we had a very strong 1st Grade colts team, we got our bums smacked at Death Valley, and we went on to nearly win the comp and Parramatta won about three games all season.

The crucial thing now is how you come back from this, and all three Colts sides really need to make a statement against Easts at Fort Forshaw. We need to draw a line in the sand, and say no more of this garbage rugby! Lift the effort at training and start making your beds – normally its the mothers complaining about beds not being made but now its the coaches.

We have nine games to go in the competition, and the luxury of telling ourselves we can pull that loss back later in the season is rapidly evaporating, and all three sides are now in a real battle to make the top six. In my opinion, to suggest that there are six or more better sides than us in any grade is a discredit to the whole colts group and their supporters, and makes a lie of the effort put into the season.

We need to turn this around starting this week against Easts at home. Then we have a week off, before heading up to Eastwood, where it’ll be payback time at TG Milner for 1st and 3rd Grade.

Keith Holmes