is there anyone out there willing to drive a free mini bus to Hemel next Saturday as the trains are bolloxed?

No driver , so it's car or train/bus. Hope to see as many of you there as possible.

Two visits to the Northern Heathen in two days this weekend. Hopefully the performance from the second game at Oxford will turn up rather than the one from the first match

The club have got a driver for the mini bus on Saturday. Leave 12.30 from New River, return at 4pm. Please let me know asap as they need to know numbers.

3 of us at the moment.

Good day out and thanks to the driver of the mini bus.

Skolars couldn't defend out wide against a structured oxford side in the 1st half . Better 2nd half getting it to 24-25 but conceded again on the hooter.

They have the talent but need the training time together to make it click . It's easier to get all the players together in smaller city's than in London.

Met someone I hadn't seen for 23 years today. Brilliant

An enjoyable game although Skolars again came up short.

I enjoyed Oxford's style of play although I think they lack enough size to challenge consistently. Good turn out from their support too.

Skolars lacked real determination in their defence. Powder puff stuff at time. Would say waiting for season to end, but as a speccie two enjoyable away trips and Friday night lights to come retain interest for me.

Highlight of the day was the highly efficient gentleman on the gate.

First half was embarassing. Neither of our centres can tackle. Oxford spotted this and consistently attacked our right edge the weaker of the two ,where we just weren't up to it!
Louis Robinson came on and upped the energy levels as he always does. This seemed to lift us a fair bit.
There seems a real lack of communication,confidence and energy.
Sencond half was a different story... Again!
Cox (a prop/ second row)was brought on at centre to shore up the right edge and that stemmed the flow down that side. He also seemed like a magnet to the loose ball, putting Macani away for one of his brace. Will cox ever get to play prop?
Pelo and Sykes worked well up the middle.
Will Lovell was handled well by the oxford defence.
Just as it looked like we were going to snatch a win and were pressuring oxford with some good D close to their line, yep we give a penalty away and with it the game!
Frustrating day out at hemel!
One of the Hemel staff hit the nail on the head when he said they look like a team of strangers!

Have to agree with that. Joe's teams have usually been well organised, but this year they have been uncoordinated both in attack and defence.

Wasn't the best performance again. Being new to skolars this season I don't have anything to compare the performances to.
Ant Cox (my son) is a forward but will play wherever he's asked to by Joe. Falling behind from the start and playing catch up RL is never going to be easy. So, sort the first 20 out and who knows!!
Watched Hemel yesterday against a very good Hunslet team.
Carbon copy of our game the day before. They fell behind by 20-odd in the first half, made a great comeback mid second half. But was never going to quite get there! Dixon was shut down every time he got the ball. The stags forwards stuck at it, but the right edge was weak, leaking tries.
Hunslet look rediculously good from 1-17 with pace and power everywhere! Going to be a tough game for our boys.

Agree with all of the above.

It might help if Skolars all trained together . The other teams ain't that special but they are drilled. Our lot look like they have never met. I watched the Same game against Oxford as we did against Oldham . At least there is some consistency.the players and coaching staff are good enough. Losing established players from last year coupled with the ins and outs this season hasn't helped .

Skolars will always have problems when some of the team live a long way outside London. Much easier to create a team if the players live in smaller singular towns like gloucester, Oxford and Hemel.

All Golds have 8 lads travelling down from the north this season, Oxford 4 or 5.

The southern based lads at Oxford live quite a distance from Oxford in some cases.
At Oxford the ultimate aim is to have a competitive team full of locals, and it is moving on the right direction thanks to the likes of Jack Briggs, but it's still a fair way off truth be told