#rugbyleague BLOG 2010/11 Australian Schoolboys coach Brendan Barrow gave his reaction to the loss to England

Entry 37, 6th December 2010

In the aftermath of their surprise 38-30 defeat to England Academy, the Australian Schoolboys were entrenched in their dressing rooms for forty minutes with coach Brendan Barrow leading the inquest.

When he did emerge Barrow gave frank and honest assessment of his team's performance.

“We knew it was going to be tough and in the first half we had a few things to deal with and we were fairly heavily behind on the penalty count but we were happy about where we were at half-time.”

“We were 12-all and came out after the break and really exploded out of the blocks well and did a great job there but we went into a bit of a sad time there at the back end of that second half. We struggled with some effort and the scoreline resembled that.” He said.

After twice holding twelve point advantages, the Schoolboys loosened their grip on the game and allowed England to overhaul them.

“It was a couple of little things that we did, just one or two things that changed momentum and I think the boys learned that. You don’t need to make a lot of things go wrong in this game to turn momentum. We had some really good momentum going forward and we probably played with that a bit and got bored with it and weren’t prepared to do a couple of little things and it swung it back England’s way.”

Barrow continued, “A couple of penalties legged them up a bit and they got into a try-scoring position and went on from there. All credit to them, they used that momentum change.”

“We have to play for eighty minutes. I was really proud of the boys at half-time, they really got a lot thrown at them in the first half and we probably should have been behind by a lot on the scoreboard, but we played great offensively and defensively to stay in the game, they did that and we had a good chat at halftime. We put a couple of tries on right after then and then got out to 30-18, and that momentum thing kicked back and we’ve just got to learn to deal with that and handle that a bit better next time.”

When questioned about his side’s discipline, Barrow commented, “There were a lot of penalties, everyone could see that. We have to have a look and see where we went wrong in those areas. We are over here in England, on English soil and we’ve got to abide by the rules, look at that and learn from it.”

Despite being hampered by the weather and late change of plans for the game, the Schoolboys refused to blame them for defeat.

“Preparation was great I couldn’t fault it and our first half showed it when we stuck at everything well but you can’t win a game in fifteen minutes in rugby league but you can lose one. I think that’s what we did tonight.”

“We are grateful that we got to play. If we’d stayed where we were we wouldn’t have played.”

The Australians are 1-0 down in the two match series and their mindset is simple.

“We’ll be back next week and it’s pretty obvious what we have to do.”