Another upset on a loss that should have been a victory. Maybe this problem is chasing every amateur club, but for some reasons we have a lack of key players almost in every decisive game… Now in details.

Having plenty of subs in second and third row, we’d faced a problem not having full front row and not having enough (experienced) backs. The issue was this experimental team:

Sasha Voronov – Vitaly – Kostya; Damien – Nicolas; Kesha – Konrad – Sergey Antohin (welcome back!); Max (s-h) – Ram (f-h); Volodya – Anton – David – Alexey – Sasha Tsvetkov.

Subs: Dima, Vanya Popov, Piotr, Olivier, Gosha, Oleg (guy from St. Petersburg).

The first to mention is that Sasha Voronov is becoming absolutely universal player having tested himself subsequently in second row, on the wing and in the front row. Performing very well he’s becoming the best newcomer for the team. Obviously Max have never played scrum-half before which resulted in awful scrum statistics in the first half. Moving Alexey from the wing to scrum-half in the second half improved the situation much. The absence of Misha left the team without some structure which also resulted in some mess on the pitch.

I want to mention another more or less funny thing. In the second half SLAVA managed to substitute I think 11 or 12 players. Between them was almost the whole pack which insisted on playing two halfs of 40 minutes. Facing brand new faces in front after second half started made me (keeping myself polite) a kind of amazed. Anyway the guys put in every effort, we’re performed well in the line outs and few times in open play and rucking and mauling. Sasha Tsvetkov scored a penalty and missed another one.

Half-time:  5 – 3.

Full-time: 12 – 3.

Big thanks to everyone and get ready for the last winter game vs MIFI.

See you at the training,

Kostya