Osman excited as preparations build towards the Inter Service Championship

Lt Col Tim Osman says excitement is his over-riding emotion with less than a month until the Inter-Services Championship gets underway.

His Army Men’s side went down 48-19 at Bedford last week, but with a home clash against the Irish Defence Force coming up on Thursday, April 18, the Head Coach believes things are on track for the Navy and Air Force battles.

He explained: “Going into the Ireland game we’ll be pretty much together for four weeks from that Monday, which we’re very excited for – it’s when hopefully everything which has gone before starts to pull together.

“One of the things we’ve been chasing is to have more meaningful, capped games, because it increases the pressure and gives opportunities to work at an Inter-Services level, so having Ireland is great.

“The chance to then be in Cyprus for a week before bouncing into Inter-Services should be excellent.

“Excitement is the over-riding feeling, building to try and get the trophy back.”

In terrible conditions at Bedford, the Army took an early lead through a converted Pte Deucu try (RLC att 2 Med Regt), only to lose fly-half Spr Jack Johnson (RE) to a yellow card before Jamie Jack and Pat Tapley touched down for Blues.

Matt Arden slotted both kicks, but the Red Shirts cut the deficit as centre Lt Frank Kelly (AGC (SPS)) barged over from close range for 14-12.

However, further Bedford tries from Jordan Onojaife and Jac Arthur, plus a third Arden conversion, made it 26-12 at the interval.

An even and scoreless third quarter was followed by the hosts pulling away late on, Ewan Baker and Arden crossing along with a somewhat harsh penalty try which also saw Capt Matt Smart (1 Yorks) sin-binned.

Army grabbed a third try through Lt Connor Mitchell (2 ANGLIAN), Smart with the extras, before Alex Woolford had the final word for Blues.

Despite defeat, Tim was positive and said: “The rain was biblical but any opportunity to get playing time is worthwhile, and it was a useful camp. Overall, I was pretty happy.

“I think the score-line was a bit harsh – while it looks like a bit of a hammering, having watched it back I don’t think it was.

“We had a sloppy 10 minutes towards the end which I’ll take the rap for as we made quite a few changes across the board.

“But that was part of the week, we had guys coming back in and wanted to give game time and opportunities.”

Small moments also meant the margin of defeat was wider than it could have been – Bedford’s opening try and Johnson’s yellow coming after Army failed to deal with the restart, their fourth after two penalties allowed the hosts to bomb a pair of lengthy kicks from inside their own 22 to their opponents.

The Head Coach accepted those are areas for improvement, while also citing positives.

He continued: “We need to work on the error count – it’s one of the big work-ons we’ll take into the next block.

“It’s been there for a while, it’s something we’re conscious of and have spoken about, but with a bit more continuity I believe it will improve.

“I thought our driving maul was great, we managed to push a couple of their’s back as well, and the set-piece was pretty strong. Those were some real positives among the forwards.

“If we can pair that with what the backs did in France and get more of the bounce of the ball, we’ll be on track.

“A few decisions didn’t go out way, but these things happen, and we’ve got to deal better with them.”

There is free entry for the Irish game at Aldershot (7.30pm).

Words © Richard Ashton

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