Sandal have had a great season and it reflects in the way that they play Rugby. They concentrate on the simple things. Pass before contact, drive in low at rucks, go to ground and present the ball, defend as a line, tackle low and support your team mates.

Sound familiar!

For those of you who come to the training sessions I am sure that you will have heard Dave bellowing all of the above.

Unfortunately we seemed to be suffering from Jet Lag in the first match. We were just not quick enough to breakdowns and our discipline to our positioning was all over the place. We forgot to tackle and "DEFEND AS A LINE", consequently time and time again our defenses were breached.

We managed to wake up for the second match and what a difference!

We started to make progress with all of the key points of our game. The forwards worked their socks off and it was great to see a try that came from a series of plays by the hard working forwards. They kept driving down the right touchline, winning penalty after penalty and eventually passed the ball out to the scum half who weaved in and to eventually go over with a great try.

The backs found their defensive positioning and tackled well. They found chinks in the defensive armour of Sandal and kept chipping away at it. The whole squad worked harder than I have ever seen and they should take merit in the fact that there were only 12 in this weeks squad compared to 27 in Sandal's.

Inevitably this was all to clear in the third match as the team battled hard but were far too weary to exploit any openings that existed.

Hats off to Kyle as he showed us all, players and coaches alike, that if you play simple Rugby you will be successful.

VIEW FROM THE TOUCHLINE

Simon Bebbington:

The game at Sandal provided a second insight in what Sheffield's U10s have to learn before they can achieve all that their skills indicate they could be capable of.

Until the fixture against Bakewell, the games had fallen into a familiar pattern. Our heavier pack won the ball, which our backs used to make strong probing runs through the opposition defence, which usually tackled only half-heartedly - meaning a strong runner could hog the ball and score. When the opposition did win the ball, they tended to run at our backs in the same way, and we also tackled half-heartedly most of the time. We won simply because we had more strong runners than the opposition, and we were supplied with more than our fair share of the ball by the pack.

Then came Bakewell. Their scrum half tamed our dominance in the loose and around the base of the scrum. They also put their best runner on the wing. He stretched our defence, which was used to dealing with attacks in the centre. We won the fixture, but the games were closer than the scores indicate.

And now Sandal has shown us to be second best, even though I doubt that any nine of their squad would have more talent and basic ball-playing skills than any nine of our squad. The difference was that while we have tended to use our skills as individuals in solo ball-hogging charges through the centre, Sandal pooled their skills as a team and stretched our defence to breaking point.

Sandall's pack dominated ours simply because they had the technical ability and attitude to push us back, even though it seemed to me that they were lighter. This meant our backs received less ball, and when they did, Sandal's backs tackled well. They were also quick to cover, so were often able to win turnover ball at tackles.

In attack, Sandall played what I can only call 'classic' rugby. They ran straight and drew our defence, and often passed just before contact. Or if they went into contact, they offloaded or turned and set at first contact, not trying to batter their way through and getting overwhelmed as we often do. Again, their constant support meant they were able to win a lot of ball at tackles.

I'm pleased to say that the boys responded well to facing a higher class of opposition. After the first game it was obvious to all that every tackle would count, and our lads made some very good tackles in response. In the second game we really disupted their back line. We battled hard in the third game, and would have had a better result but for injury and exhaustion while facing a fresher opposition.

We lost to a class opposition by smaller margins than some other teams have lost to us. I have no doubt we will continue beat other teams using the familiar formula of gung-ho solo charges - for a couple of seasons. But when the other teams learn to play like Sandal, we will slip from our position of being second best to bottom of the table.

So our boys have a simple choice to make - stay second best for a few years, or have the self-discipline to play as a team and become the best.

The open secret is simply that playing classic rugby is the way to win games against any opposition - and that includes Sandal, as in reality they are nothing special, just well trained and disciplined.