WELL, a tough away trip it certainly was. But there was no real surprise in that.
We knew Canterbury would be hard to beat, especially at home, and so it proved.
They had been underperforming in recent matches, according to their website, and had received some strong words with regards to their previous performance, so they were certainly fired up and ready to play.
However, the game started positively for us and we began to look stronger than we have previously with the ball in hand. And, working under our new patterns of play, we felt we created some genuine scoring opportunities. This is something we have been lacking recently.
- I started on the bench, which meant Ryan Storer led the team on Saturday, which is exactly what he did. He led by example throughout, and his success and leadership was reflected in the positive performance for such large parts of the game.
As I have said before, rugby is about habits and we are not currently in the winning one.
But Saturday showed a real depth of character from many players, some of whom have not been playing to their own high standards recently. It was different on Saturday and there were some outstanding performances.
These really lifted the team and there was genuine desire from the team to succeed and perform.
This is a vital step forward if we are to survive this year. It's when it stops mattering or players stop caring, that you have a problem. We showed we are a long way from that yet, and I hope we never get to that point.
We were able to continue playing and looked a real threat, even up to the final whistle and, in fact, scored late on.
We even missed a clear-cut chance in the final passage of play, when we messed up a simple two-on-one. It might seem a bit odd to say that but at least we were in the right place at the right time to create these chances. In previous games, we just wouldn't have even been there.
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