Away day blues

Saturday, November 17, 2007 - remember the day?
Well that was the date of Albion's last league away win.
It came against Moseley at Billesley Common with Albion winning 29-10.
Albion have claimed cup away wins at Henley, Pertemps Bees and Rotherham in 2008, but they have not been able to break their duck in the league. The closest they came was a draw 17-17 at the Cornish Pirates in April.
When Graham Dawe first arrived at Albion the club's poor away record was one of the things he put right.
In the previous two seasons before Dawe arrived at Beacon Park, Albion could hardly buy a win on their travels - although they did pull one out of the bag in their final match of the 1998-99 season at Weston-super-Mare to maintain their National League status.
But Albion's travel sickness appears to have returned in the last 12 months.
It is interesting to note that while Albion cannot buy a win away from home, footballing neighbours Argyle have the opposite problem - they are picking up points on the road but not at Home Park.
Albion went to Newbury last Saturday optimistic that they could put an end to their disappointing away form.
They went into the match on the back of a six-try win over Manchester, while Newbury had lost their opening three games.
Maybe some of Albion's players expected to win, but they should know there are no easy wins away from home in Division One.
Newbury's start to the season may have looked poor on paper, but two of their defeats had been away from home and by all accounts they could have won their only other league game at Monks Lane against Moseley.
Nearly every team in Division One are strong at home, but the difference between the teams at the top and those in the middle and at the bottom is the ability to collect points on their travels, which is not an easy thing to do as results every week prove. The Cornish Pirates, who came unstuck at Coventry, almost lost at winless Otley last Saturday, while Doncaster struggled to overcome Manchester at Grove Park.
Newbury were certainly up for their game against Albion. They really pressed Graham Dawe's side into mistakes. The pressure they put on Albion's half-backs was immense and Greg Nicholls and, then when he came on, David Palu were given no time whatsoever to distrubute the ball.
A few times it looked like Newbury must have been off-side to have got to Nicholls or Palu so quickly, but if you can get away with it then it is good play and Albion's forwards will be disappointed that Newbury got around the sides so often.
Yet the big frustration for Albion was failing to make three five-metre line-outs tell when on each occassion they had the push on their visitors.
It seems like a long time since Albion have driven a team over from a scrum, but it looked like they were going to do that last Saturday only for the ball to come loose.
At one time when Albion had the likes of Dan Ward-Smith, Will James, Andy Perry, Brett Luxton, Wayne Reed and Graham Dawe in their pack a five-metre scrum was nearly a certain try.
Probably about a third of Ward-Smith's 100 tries for Albion came from scrums, but now with most teams professional in Division One, it is very difficult for teams to score pushover tries, although Albion could have done that on Saturday with a bit more control.
With both James Owen and Gareth Evans unavailable, Albion opted to start with Graham Dawe in their line-up. It was Dawe's first start since Albion's Division One title showdown with Bristol in March 2005 - a game that saw Martin Rice make his debut.
Dawe put many of his younger team-mates to shame last Saturday with the passion, effort and commitment he showed and he ended up playing the full 80 minutes at Monks Lane. It was the first time he had played a full first team game since October 2004. But Dawe will probably be the first to admit, that he should not be picking up Albion man of the match awards at 49!
Hopefully, Albion can put their away record right when they visit Otley in their next away game, although before that they have a very tough match this weekend at home to London Welsh, who have won three of their four games this season.
Anyway, if any Albion supporters need a positive thought after Saturday’s defeat here’s one. When Albion finished third behind big spending Worcester and Orrell in 2003-04, they lost three out of their first four games, including home defeats to Otley and Bedford.
* Although the season is only a few weeks old the award for strangest shirt sponsorship has to go to Newbury.
Maybe their shirts could be their secret weapon this year. Having jerseys with 'Jokers' written in large letters on the front of them may lead opposition teams into a false sense of security!