'Very valuable few days', says Osman

A 33-22 ‘Le Crunch’ victory against the French Army came at the end of a ‘very valuable few days’ according to Men’s Head Coach, Lt Col Tim Osman.

In front of a partisan crowd in Pau, the Red Shirts made a perfect start as Spr Jack Johnson (RE) converted a try from Tpr Levi Roper (QDG) inside two minutes, but the hosts hit back with a trio of penalties.

Despite losing Sgt Matt Dawson (Int Corps) to the sin-bin, a superb Johnson solo score and kick gave the British Army a 14-9 half-time advantage, albeit two more three-pointers nudged the home side back in front in the third quarter.

Yet two more converted scores, this time by Lt Frank Kelly (AGC (SPS)), gave the visitors a 28-15 lead heading into the closing stages.

The French hit back with a penalty try, but Rfn Vereimi Qorowale’s (2 Rifles) touchline effort finished things off for the Army.

Lt Col Osman was pleased with plenty of aspects of the victory and reflected: “We focused on trying to get the win away – you don’t often have the chance to, and France is one of the hardest places to go.

“We never truly got going, but on the few occasions we got the ball in the right place we caused them all sorts of problems.

“We had five tries from across the backs, so they retain bragging rights again – I think most of our tries have been from them this year, which has been entertaining. There are some exciting players out there and hopefully a lot more to come.”

He continued: “We had a good training week, and it was a step up in terms of performance; also pleasing to deal with the environment and pressure.

“Inter-Services is very hard to replicate, playing in front of 50-60,000 people, but the fact it was a Capped match against an international Army was probably as close as you’re going to get to the pressures you’ll come under.

“They were within a score to win it towards the end, but it didn’t feel like a game as close as the score-line suggested – on a different day and in different conditions potentially it could have been more reflective of the way we felt it could have gone.

“All in all, it was a very valuable few days, a good win and a useful step forward. I was very happy.”

Two areas the Red Shirts struggled at were the scrum and their discipline, and Tim admitted the latter especially needs to be improved.

He explained: “The penalty count was about 23-3, but we defended well and on both occasions we were down to 14, we scored.

“However, we’re going to need to work hard to adapt and understand referees’ interpretations, which has probably been the biggest criticism of the squad during the past 18 months.

“(With the scrum), they had an enormous tight-head prop and enormous lock behind him, and they caused us problems on a pretty soft surface – they’ve had 1,000mm of rain since October which is very unlike that part of the world.

“As a standalone I’m not too concerned, everyone knows the French like to scrummage, they were very good, and when you break the game down, the ball in play time was pretty low which helped them.”

Next up for the Army is Bedford Blues next Thursday, with Tim revealing: “We’ve got a few guys coming back, LCpl Mikey McDonald (RE) from playing for Germany, Capt Stu Cross (RMAS/Yorks) is back from Kuwait and a couple more, so the team will change.

“We’ve got to get those guys reintegrated into what we’ve done over the past couple of weeks and we’re looking forward to it.

“Team selection is very competitive and there’ll be a few disappointed guys who won’t be in, but it shows the breadth of talent available and allows us to chop and change a bit, hopefully without dropping off.

“Bedford always like to put on a show, they’re playing a decent standard and have a couple of weeks off so they’ll have a good mix of decent players coming back in and youngsters, so it’ll be a tough challenge, albeit in a game with the pace we want to play at.”

Words © Richard Ashton

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