McAvoy calls for ‘resilience’ from Newbury Blues squad
Newbury Blues head coach James McAvoy was pleased with aspects of his side’s performance following their 32-14 loss to Winchester.
Blues hosted the fourth placed side on Saturday well aware of their underdog status, but they were able to compete with the visitors in the early stages of the match.
Winchester did open the scoring, going 10-0 up with just five minutes on the clock.
Newbury responded well though, holding their opponents to that total for the next quarter of an hour as they found their footing in the contest.
In the 20th minute it was Josh Winfield who scored the first of Blues’ tries, halving the deficit before Tom Cole converted to make it 10-7.
From here however, Winchester turned the screw, scoring twelve points in the next eighteen minutes to take the game away from the home side.
Newbury halted this momentum in the 38th minute, as Harry Cooper went over and Cole converted to reduce the gap to eight points.
Two late penalties for Winchester saw them pull away further, with the game ending in a 32-14 loss for Blues.
“We’re playing well in periods of games, but not a full performance,” McAvoy said.
“For large parts we nullified their attack, we know what they like to bring, dominance from set pieces and a physical battle.
“They keep the scoreboard ticking and you feel like you’re further away than you are.
“We certainly forced a lot of errors, there was a lot of effort from us.
“A few boys need to look at how comfortable they are defending in open spaces, especially our forwards.
“When we score, we score easily. When we do attack, in phase play, we look threatening.
“The issue is that our lineout completion rate is just too low in the opponent’s 22.
“It doesn't give us the platform for set pieces to get the points we deserve.”
McAvoy wants his players to have more self belief, with the Blues coach certain that the quality is there to consistently win games.
“I wonder where we are in terms of boys thinking from minute one, ‘we can come out here and win this game’,” he said.
“Those little bits when momentum shifts, when the opponent scores, do you have the self belief to move on quite quickly?
“We’re looking at resilience and the mindset of players, making sure we have suitable goals and targets in mind, so that we have self belief.”
Saturday provides perhaps the ideal test of this, as third from bottom Blues travel to league leaders Tottonians, where bravery will be vital.
“We want to play the way we want to, not have to have a trigger that ignites us,” he explained.
“That’s what we’re looking for this week.
“We’ll set some performance goals, instead of saying ‘this result’ or ‘this scoreline’.
“They’ve had a quality season and are barely changing their team each week.
“There’s consistency, and we haven’t really had that this season.”