Burrell's Blog - Feb 2007

Since my last blog training has started and we have also played our first pre-season game. More on that later......

I suppose I must admit to being a bit anxious before pre-season training started. A few hints had been dropped that things were going to get pretty tough!

Bearing in mind that last season we had got used to just turning up and chucking a ball about I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the format when we kicked off again in January.

Coaches Adam Hill and Chris Heading have introduced a lot of structure to sessions so we are working on fitness, techniques and skills. It's hard work but enjoyable too. We're learning a lot and team spirit is really building as result. We still get to play a bit of a game too.

Obviously, for London's best dressed RL team, training has also seen a gradual accumulation of new kit! Home strip, away / training strip plus a "distinctive" red training top as well. That's two drawers full of Griffins gear now but despite that I found a Griffins polo on forty-twenty.co.uk that I hadn't got*. Anyone moaning about the lack of Quins RL merchandise could always start supporting the Griffins!

I think we were all pretty excited about our first match of the season against Southgate Eagles. We had a few players missing but were still able to pull together a decent squad.

It's always nice to get a bit of a crowd and as the game was played as curtain raiser to the Skolars v Quins Capital Challenge there was a fair few watching. Thanks to all those who made the effort. Hope they enjoyed the game!

In somewhat disastrous start we suffered injuries to two key players. Mark Price left the pitch with what turned out to be a dislocated elbow. Get better soon Mark! Chris Heading got a serious bang on the eye but played on without realising he had fractured his eye socket (ouch!). I think it's fair to say we were pretty shell shocked and found ourselves 18-0 down after what must have been less than 10 minutes. For one of the tries, Chris reckoned he had 8 players running straight at him. Now I'll admit our defence was bad but I think at least half of those players were down to the problems with his vision!

That was a real low point but we were determined to stop the rot. Although maybe the steadier period of the play that ensued was more down to Lee Brown's suggestion that things could get, shall we say, a bit nasty if things didn't look up!

For sure, there were some good leaders out there on the pitch. Adam Hill put in an inspiring performance. His Dad, Alan, showed us the benefit of experience too! We actually started to boss things in the second half and looked dangerous whenever we moved the ball about. Remarkably, with a couple of minutes to go we were just 4 points behind. In a way, a fairy tale ending would not have been deserved and Southgate were worthy winners by 32 to 24 thanks to a try under the posts right on the whistle.

While it wasn't good to lose I think we can take a lot from the game. After all, it was only our 2nd full contact match. Our organisation and enthusiasm in defence was lacking but these are things we are already working on correcting. We have Southgate in our sights for a rematch....

Well done, hope your season goes well.