Andy Northey

“A lot of credit has to go to Ealing; it would be disrespectful to just say we were poor in the first half and never got going, they played their part in keeping us try-less.

We looked like we lacked a bit of urgency at times, which I put down to a lack of discipline when playing against underdogs like that.

You don’t have to be a rugby genius to realise they were going to be bang up for it from the start and would go looking for another upset. They were game and competitive but lacked a little bit of invention.

Ultimately we defended well but the amount of ball we turned over was unacceptable, which gave them an amount of possession they should not have enjoyed, so to go in 7-6 down at half-time wasn’t so bad; we always thought we could consolidate.

We made some changes to shore the pack up and find some ball carriers. As soon as we changed the front row around we began to put their scrum under pressure and the turnovers began to come our way.

‘Skurrsy’ gets us some go forward and the longer we had the ball the more they went backwards and we began to find more and more holes in their defence.

It was good to be away from the expectations and pressures of league rugby and although our performance levels could have been better I’m not massively disappointed.

However, some lads will have go away and have a look at themselves. They’ve been knocking on the door saying to Tim and me, “I can do this and I can do that, give me a shot.”

And while you can’t judge them on one game, there were performances that were not up to the level that was promised.”