tears of anguish

i can't remember the last time i felt so emotionally frustrated and sapped after a match.

we drew with a team we were supposed to beat convincingly, but that was not what got to me.

the match must have lasted almost 100 minutes, including all the stopping time - there were so many problems with the scrum, the ref kept resetting it. he missed several instances of 'playing the ball on the ground'.

we had 3 'backs moves' to try out during the match, and as much as i tried not to get too nervous, i couldn't help but feel the pressure of being the flyhalf. it will get better with every match though. but yesterday i was shouting a lot on the field like amy told me to, trying to take charge of the backs (it's quite hard when your backs are generally more inexperienced and tend to scatter all over the place and mix up with the forwards - or stand in front of the ball).

the first half of the first half (that's the first 20 minutes i guess?) was quite awesome for me - we did our moves and they worked quite well. switches, winger looping me, popping the ball to no. 12 for a crash-up into the defence... then it all spiralled downhill.

somehow we just lost the momentum. it was so tiring to keep stopping and starting (the ref kept blowing the whistle, restarting the scrums, injury breaks etc. etc.) - and the opposition got most of the scrum feed-ins, so the backline was perpetually on defence almost every scrum-time. so much time was spent on the scrum, that obviously we didn't get much ball. and when we did get the ball the forwards would take it up, and then there would be a knock-on or something, and there would be another scrum again...

now imagine the scrum getting reset. 2,3,4, even 5 times. each time. i get very intense and agitated when i'm on defence, and by the end of the match i was just so frustrated and upset. felt tears coming into my eyes during the coach's brief debrief on the pitch, but maybe that was just relief that the match was over?

i've set my high standards for myself, and at present i'm a long shot from reaching them. i've been falling off tackles a lot, and it takes a fair amount of psyching-up to not feel scared of tackling bigger girls. it feels good when my teammates tell me that in their opinion, i played well, but deep down inside i ultimately disagree with them.

and it hurts.