Pointless pedestrian performance

A strong wind from the south was used to their advantage by the visitors in the first half, but Gss, despite losing tight head Thomas Shields, restricted them to two converted tries and two penalties, while a lone Tom Goss try was all they could muster in reply.
Gravesend seem to take to the park with the same game plan every week, or at least the some of the players would appear to have only one tunnel vision of the game.
Before Shields went off, it was already apparent that Hertford were having the better of the exchanges in the scrummage, but were not having it all their own way at the breakdown.
This said, Gss would not or could not get the ball out to their backs at any pace to give them time and space to exploit what could clearly be seen, their superiority. At times there was more talk than rugby, and again some of the slap tackling put even more pressure on those that were performing.
What is so disappointing about today's performance, in front of around two hundred and forty of their peers many of whom had been at the "captains day" lunch, is that those who see them play every week, know they can do better when the ball is spread to the talented Tom Goss and Temi Okenla.
The two Herts tries, scored by James Solomon and Luke Sloan, with the fly-half, Richard Gregg adding the conversion to both and adding two penalties for a first half tally for 5-20
In the second half, Herts played to our weaknesses in the forwards, and drove at pace with second phase possession, but were continually stopped from making too many advances.
Gravesend on the other hand were so predictable that they may as well telegraphed their next move, as the home pack drove forward a metre at a time.
Nine second half penalties, three out of three put between the posts by the accurate Stephen McNamara, but even with the wind behind Gs made little advance from the kicks to the line, and it was with time running out that Temi Okenla took the initiative to take a quick tap in the effort to make a break through.
At 14-20 those watching were expectant of more to come, but on sixty-eight minutes it was a solo break away from his own twenty-two that saw replacement, Josh McFarlane race through without a hand reaching him for a try to extend the score to 14-25, and what may have been a losing bonus point taken away.
There were some good individual performances from Tom Bird, Geoff Marshall, Ashley Moorey, James Newman, Stephen McNamara, and if the service to Jacob Berthelson had been better, the result may well have been different.
Twelve minutes was ample time for Gss to get the scores need to even take the result, but lack of ambition and the inability to change their mode of play was again their downfall.
We know there is a performance waiting to come out, but it has to come from a team performance, from players who can let their ability come through and once they can go on the park be able to change their game plan when needed.
Only Shelford and Gravesend failed to record a point, and Bracknells second win of the season pulls them level with Gss on thirteen points just above relegation. Next week a visit to Wimbledon who are sitting two places and four points ahead of Gravesend in the league table.