Cotham Park RFC The closest Rugby club to Clifton in Bristol

This was, by a long way, our worst performance of the season. (Possibly the worst performance of the last few years!) Once again we failed to put out a front row which resulted in another set of passive scrums. The forwards took far too long to get in to the game and this resulted in a very sluggish first 30 minutes when we failed to use the slope to our advantage. Barton Hill were poor but we were much much worse!

1. Ken Groom
2. Kerry Brimblecombe
3. Alan Proudfoot
4. Kaspar Herrmann
5. James Sage
6. Johnny A
7. Ollie Squire
8. Johnny Kiwi

9. Dave Grew
10. Jimmy Cook
11. Seb Stuart
12. Nick Robinson
13. Basil French
14. Fresh Air
15. Uncle Fester

16. Kiwi
17. George Francis

Strangely we did manage to reach half time with the lead after a well worked move put Seb free. This allowed us to recycle well and to score a good try. However a slender 7-5 lead was going to be tough to defend. We started the second half brightly with the forwards beginning to dominate the open play. We pressurised the Barton line only for a series of calamitous mistakes in our back line resulted in two tries for Barton.

Jimmy Cook lifted spirits at the end with a good try from a chip ahead which resulted in a sublime inside pass from veteran full back Simon Coles which put Jimmy over. On a normal day we would have cut Barton Hill to shreds. Our forwards would have dominated the set plays and our off loading game would have finished them off. We have become too reliant on our forwards domination. When this does not happen the backs must step forward and take responsibility.

What was evident from this display and from the performance of the First XV last week is that they do not have the basic skill level to do this. It is difficult to criticise this team who made themselves available to play however they have got to go to training to learn the moves and to improve their knowledge of the game.

New hooker Kerry (!) looks tidy, James Sage had one of his better games for the 'Park, half back pairing of Dave Grew and Jimmy gave their all and Johnny Alexander gave his usual huge performance before some sore ribs took him from the field in the second half.

On Sunday I had the misfortune to have to spend time in John Lewis in the Mall (Surely I had been punished enough already!) . As I looked at the Christmas displays (Are we not at the start of October!) I made a silent wish for an early Christmas present of two fit props and a back line willing to learn. If I don't have my wish this could be a very long season indeed.......

Tries: Jimmy Cook, Basile French

Andrew Day