Rugby club go through the motions in silence
By Jim Morgan at Castle Playing Fields on Monday, 17th December 2012.
Having failed to turn out a side last week, the general consensus was that Haverhill failed to turn up this Saturday too.
With a side that, on the whole, reads well on the sheet, Haverhill lacked the attack in all facets of the game and were a side 'going through the motions' of fulfilling their fixture list.
When the 'Players Charter' leads to key team members, who rarely miss home or away games, being left on the bench and other players then having to play out of position, it is not surprising the dynamics of the team are destroyed.
Haverhill started quite well and had a number of forays into the Great Yarmouth side's 22m line, but too frequent use of the boot just gave possession away.
On nine minutes, from one of these incursions, Haverhill suddenly found themselves on the back end of a lighting fast attack, finally stopped five metres out by a crunching tackle and turnover by Simon Potter.
On 12 minutes Kieron McDonagh left the park injured to be replaced by a rather reluctant-looking Martin Ransome.
Broadlands continue to pressure Haverhill and a poor tackle in the back line led to a gap that was spotted by a storming Broadlands fly half who charged under the posts for 0-5 on 15 minutes. The regulation kick was charged down by Hunt.
On 25 minutes, Haverhill won a penalty that did not find touch and within seconds they found themselves back on their 22-metre line defending.
The resulting scrum was lost against the head and from the wreckage, a yellow card for Potter was flashed for going off his feet in the ruck. The resulting penalty was kicked to five metres and then skilfully caught and driven over for 0-10 on 30 minutes, the kick missing.
Another Haverhill scrum was turned over and then a move straight off the training ground saw Haverhill sliced open like a kipper with a miss move and the full back running under the posts unhindered. This time the kicker moved further back to avoid the charge down and the score was 0-17.
In what proved to be the final play of the half, Broadlands drove the ball over for a converted try and 0-24 at the turn, the yellow card costing 19 points.
On 42 minutes, Mike Woods came off the bench to replace Jake Jeffs at full back, who replaced Martin Hughes at fly half.
At 45 minutes, Haverhill won the ball and for the first time the ball was moved up the line. Monty Beaton got a pass, but seemed so shocked to see the ball, he spilled it.
Haverhill started to believe a bit more and turned over the Broadlands scrum a few times, but the moves broke down.
Broadlands tried a drop kick on 61 minutes, which was wide and Haverhill continued to try to get back into the game.
With a huge black finger of cloud heading towards the Castle Fields the final ten minutes of the game was spent in a downpour of biblical proportions.
With the crowd feeling the warmth of the bar had a better calling, and six minutes to go, the referee flashed yellow to the Broadlands number eight and gave a glimmer of hope that Haverhill might get some points on the board.
Broadlands had other ideas and with four minutes left on the clock, crossed the line for 0-29. The prediction was that whatever happened to the kick, the referee would call it a day, and as the ball slipped wide, the final whistle came.
Haverhill have problems that need to be sorted out on the training ground, but when they are playing, they need to be talking to each other, as the silence on the field yesterday was palpable.
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