BARFC Coach comments and preview v Bideford
Bridgwater and Albion may have been beaten on Saturday but their head coach Simon Morrell was far from disheartened by the performance his side put in down in West Devon.
“I don’t think we can complain because Okehampton are a strong side. We gave them a head start in the opening few minutes and never recovered.
“They were exceptional and well done to them. A score line like that happens in this league, and if you don’t get it quite right then you can easily have 50 points put on you.
“However we need to remember that we were missing nine senior guys from our line up.
“In fairness it wasn’t a great game to have had so many inexperienced guys playing at a tricky away location.
“Having said that a number of those who stepped up were exceptional, including Lewis Plece who scored a try on his first senior start and he really took his opportunity and should be proud.”
“It will do the inexperienced players who represented the first XV no harm at all in learning what life is like playing away against a side like that in this league. It bodes well for the future that the guys are getting this type of experience.
“We will pick the positives out of it and hopefully the guys will go away and use it for their development. It’s only a catastrophe if we don’t respond on the pitch on Saturday and I am confident that we will.
This Saturday the Albion are at home to Bideford kick off 2.15pm.
Currently the side from North Devon side occupy 11th place in the table, two places below Albion with four points less from the same number of matches.
When the two sides met earlier this year it was Bideford who claimed the game 35-22.
The head coach said: “We are all really looking forward to playing Bideford at home on Saturday and cant wait. When we went there earlier in the season we felt that we didn’t do ourselves justice, because we had the game and then lost it in the last 10 minutes, so we wont be holding back.
“A loss like the one we suffered on Saturday often makes you more determined. Next week will be difficult for selection as returning players are available but we also want to show some reward for the guys that played away Okehampton and continue their development and integration to regular first XV rugby in order to broaden our playing resources for first XV rugby.”
He added: “Its perfect for us to be at home to end the first half of the season, so lets hope for a nice big crowd to watch the boys put in a really strong performance.”
Category: Previews / Reports -XV
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