Promising Performance.

We felt that it was important to reflect on the Sweden v Holland match that took place yesterday and we also decided to speak to the the coaching team to get their view on the performance, before we published our post.

The match was a terrific advertisement for the game, played at a fast and furious pace, this was a game that Sweden should have won. Unfortunately the wrong decisions were taken at times, the number of penalties awarded to Sweden were more than enough to win the match had either of the two main kickers on the pitch nudged the ball to goal. It was clear to the experienced eye that the team were working to a game plan and with the forwards dominating the opposition pack they took the game to the Dutch, who took over 10 minutes to get out of their own half. With the back row hitting anything that moved things were looking good and the first penalty awarded gave Sweden the lead. Holland obviously shaken by this turn of events, upped their game and they started to make inroads into the Swedish half applying some intense pressure, eventually resulting in a penalty which was calmly kicked through the posts. That seemed to inspire the home team to even greater efforts and with  the opposition continually infringing a further kickable penalty was taken and the lead restored. Once more the Dutch came back and just before half time they equalled the scores with another penalty, so at half time the score was 6-6.
Receiving the kick, Sweden made an error and from the resultant scrum Holland made the most of this gift by
going over the line to score. The extra points were missed but for the first time Sweden were behind, they however were far from finished and took the game back to the Dutch, who were still committing too many penalties under the pressure being applied by the home side. Again though, the Dutch broke out from defence and managed to set up a counter attack which was finished off by a try. Still Sweden kept coming back and after yet another penalty, which was kicked, the referee yellow carded  one of the opposition. This encouraged a further spell of dominance with a further number of penalties being awarded to them. These should have been kicked at goal but instead were kicked to touch, for the lineout. All credit to the Dutch, they defended as if their lives depended on it and no scores were awarded whilst they were a man down. The Swedes were convinced they had scored when their left winger touched down and with the referee unsure, he consulted the Dutch touch judge, who said there had been a double movement.
As the game was drawing to a close Sweden made some changes and carried on applying pressure, which resulted in a try for them under the posts, following some good running and work by the replacement centre with the extra points being added the score had been closed to 3 points. The Dutch then took up the challenge of keep ball and just played a series of driving mauls to run the clock down and from one of those a drop goal was attempted, after which the referee blew the final whistle leaving the score at 16-19.

We understand that the players and management team were bitterly disappointed with the result as you would expect. In our view they were the better team and there are a lot of positives to be taken into the next match against Malta next weekend. The coaching team feel that this could be the start of something really exciting for the National Squad, with potentially the best group of players that Sweden has ever had. The weekend showed that they enjoyed each others company and wanted more than anything to move forward together.

We at TrueSwedenRugby believe that is a distinct possibility and wish them well for the future and look forward to receiving the report from the next match.