Portland kicked off their Spring season this past weekend, with a home game against their long time friends / adversaries Old Gold. The visitors are prepping for their play-off game against Village Lions in two weeks, so this was their second game of the season, and they had been hard at work in the gym for many months prior. By contrast this was Portland's first game of the year, and coming off only some limited outdoor training time, they took the field sporting a significant number of younger, if not newer faces since the end of their Fall campaign.
Thanks to some hard work of their own in the gym though, the Portland lads did not lack too much in the fitness area themselves, but what they clearly were in need of was playing experience; as many strong individual performances were undermined by a lack of support or cohesion. Fortunately however, all that stuff is fixable with the appropriate amount of playing time and group therapy.
Most of the game was pretty evenly contested, with Portland holding their own in the scrums and securing as much lineout ball as their opponents. It was however Old Gold who crossed the line twice, once early and once late, to give them the victory on the day. Not that Portland were without their chances, as they responded to the first score by forcing a penalty under OG's posts, which Carlos Tetzlaff duly converted, to bring the scoreline to 5-3.
Portland had two other opportunities either side of the break to sneak a 6-5 lead, but when presented with similar penalty opportunities they failed to make their kicks. Again, a lack of outdoor practice time was most likely the culprit here, and with Carlos now out for the foreseable future, an open casting call for kicker will be held shortly.
Portland should take heart in their solid defense for most of the day, with tackles being made beyond the gain line, and OG's backs well contained. A few momentary lapses of concentration made the difference, but credit to OG for taking their chances when the door was left open.
Towards the end of the game, now trailing 10-3, Portland ran the ball repeatedly, but a lack of match conditioning showed and players did not reach the breakdown in sufficient numbers, so turnovers inevitably ensued. So that's how the game ended, with the ref having given his right arm a good workout awarding a hat full of penalties on both sides. Let's give ourselves the benefit of the doubt here and say that we did at least manage two steps forward for every one back. Scotty Derrig picked up MOTM honors for being so darn squirelly.
The bright spot of the day was that the B side picked up right where they left off in the Fall, with a storming performance against a young OG B side. Fielding a large, and in some parts youthful pack, Portland took the game on up front with strong performances from Byron Brinkley and Bubba Nadeau to name just a few. Not to be out done the backs proved to be a handful themselves, with Josh Doughty continuing the hard running he displayed in the A game, and Len Rand putting in a MOTM performance on the wing.
All in all, not a dream start for Portland, but one which provided cause for optimism, given the lack of outdoor playing time we've had this year. Onwards and upwards.
UMF comes to Portland this weekend for a kick-around. More details to follow...
