The sweet taste of victory
World Cup winner Greenwood hails Maids’ energy and desire in 54-12 win over CS Stags
The England head coach, Eddie Jones, once told this group of Maidenhead players that ‘the beer tastes better when you win’, and it will certainly have tasted pretty sweet for those players after Saturday's thumping 5412 victory over CS Stags.
Maids have had a difficult introduction to life in the London & South East Premier Division, losing six of their opening eight matches, but belatedly, they’re showing signs they’re getting to grips with the faster style of play and tempo employed by most teams.
Many were predicting a difficult afternoon for Maids at Braywick after their 45-13 loss at Westcombe Park, but in truth it was anything but as they got to work dismantling a vulnerable looking CS Stags side from the opening whistle.
Playing with an energy and enthusiasm that’s been missing from many of their performances so far this season, they carved through the Stags’ backline with relative ease, and in Christoph Bart, Ben Mitchell, and Ed Keohane they had players capable of breaking through tackles and controlling the flow of the game.
What’s more their defensive game was also on point. It’s an area they’ve struggled with in their early matches and fast, elusive runners have been able to expose those frailties. However, on Saturday, they shut down the Stags’ more influential players and changes to the defensive structure ensured players were hunting in packs of threes and fours to ensure support was on hand if tackles were missed.
The coaching team has also worked on taking some of the pressure off the players shoulders. Speaking after the final whistle, Will Greenwood, said the message to them before kick-off was ‘just to go out and play’.
“I don’t think we ever lost our confidence,” he said.
“There have been moments of self-reflection, where we feel we haven’t performed as well as we can.
“But we said to the boys, ‘don’t worry about results’, just go out and play.
“Why did they start playing as kids, because they loved played with their mates and for their local club.
“The beer tastes better when you win, which is what Eddie Jones told us when he came down here.
“They just found that energy today and, yeah, it was sort of a perfect game for us at home against a team that’s been in a similar position to us this season.
“We weren’t ever 3/10 when we were getting stuffed, and we weren’t 9/10 today, and sometimes you have to find that balance in life, so you don’t go up and down and get too emotional about things.”
He added: “I was just really pleased. There were a lot of Maidenhead boys out there, young Maidenhead boys who have come up through the ranks and now have a taste of what it’s like and that was a good win for them.”
For the most part on Saturday, the Stags were repelled by a brick wall of black and magenta. They managed to score just twice, their second try coming in the dying seconds when the game was already well won. However, while the win was founded on solid defence, Greenwood was more impressed with the players’ energy, desire and cohesion, and says they've now set themselves a standard they’ll have to meet in the remainder of the campaign.
“Of course, you’re always trying to work on technicalities to improve,” he said. “But the reality is that too often this season we’ve been slow out of the blocks and gone in ones and twos when we should have gone in units or packs.
“There have been spells in games when our energy has been low but today, we hunted in threes and fours and kept the energy high.
“The reality is that the win was grounded on desire and energy. The beauty of rugby is that if you turn up with that sort of energy every week, you can beat anyone.”
He added: “In previous games we found ourselves paralysed with fear and making errors trying to find this utopian, perfect rugby,” he said. “So, we asked them ‘why do you play?’,
“Because you like scoring tries and taking players on. If there’s no one in front of you run, if there’s someone in front of you, pass it to someone else. That was all.
“They were great today, and it was really enjoyable to watch. The good news for us as coaches is that we can now demand those standards from them because at times we haven’t quite hit those heights.
“The table doesn’t lie. We were the two bottom of the table teams and there will be much sterner tests, but hopefully we can find that energy and cohesion again when we’re on the backfoot, when things are going against us or when we’re 15 points down, which we inevitably will be.”
The victory lifted Maids above Tunbridge Wells to 12th in the table ahead of Saturday's difficult looking trip to mid-table Havant.