We've Got That Loving F-Ealing!

Certain matches stand out in a coach’s memory no matter how long ago they were. Bracknell U9a’s v Ealing Trailfinders RFC at the Harlequins festival in 2009 was one such game. Our plucky and talented team was taken apart from the kick-off to the final whistle by a direct and deadly application of pace and power rugby. Big, fast athletes, running hard and straight ball in hand, coming at us wave after wave, beating down our defences and scoring four unanswered tries – one of our biggest defeats in our entire history from U7 onwards and the only time that we have shipped that many points without reply.
As things happen, we have not played against Ealing since that day and apart from combining with Ealing last season to from the SE England Lambs ‘Rebels’, we have had little to do with Ealing. Our experience in playing with the Ealing lads as teammates however, did not leave us in any doubt that the rugby qualities that we remembered Ealing for so well as under 9’s was still massively apparent in the lads as under 13’s as between us, we gave the best of the SE England prep schools one hell of a fright that night in Maidenhead.
It was thus without our usual joyful anticipation of another BRFC U14a’s victory that we set off for Ealing RFC in the early hours of Sunday, particularly without some of our star players – county winger Joshua Zeller, cut down in his prime with a broken collar bone during a schools match the day before and both our fullbacks, Ewan Castle due to a schoolyard injury and JJ Paling due to swimming trials – unavailable. Josh Johnson was a cracking replacement, but having spent the season thus far at 10 for the B’s, fullback v Ealing RFC was a big ask from us as coaches but the man with ice in veins didn’t hesitate for a second and stepped right up.
Welcomed back into the team were Jamie Brown at scrumhalf and James Williams on the wing, back from an extended cricket season – what a game to come back into the side for!
The game kicked off and it was very soon evident that Ealing were everything we expected them to be and they took the game to us right from the start. We were playing three 20-minute ‘halves’ and spent almost the entire first 20 in our half, defending our line from attack after attack and enduring a most comprehensive assessment of our character as a team in the process. As fearsome as their onslaught was, our defence was epic and totally up for the challenge and while we couldn’t establish any momentum or get into their half of the pitch for any significant periods, the whistle for the end of the period was something of a moral victory for us as we had absorbed everything thrown at us and the score line remained at nil-all.
The second 20 saw the game opening up and both sides played some wonderfully creative and constructive rugby. Ealing were direct and used their big backs to smash into the our mid-field, which held up wonderfully, with our forwards providing an exceptional level of cover-defence, a huge improvement from the Reeds game last week. In turn, we used our pack to establish forward momentum and then swung the ball as wide as we could looking to exploit the outside channels. It was the Ealing broadsword against the Bracknell rapier and neither team was going to give an inch.
The deadlock was broken when an alert Ealing back pounced on a rare Bracknell handling error and scorched a 30-yard run-in for his reward for an excellent piece of rugby sense, and with the conversion unsuccessful we were 5-0 down. This was a crucial point in the game as we were either going to implode now that the duck had been broken or we were going to use the set-back as motivation to dig deep and reply. As is the way with our band of brothers, it was the latter and after a sustained period of old school Bracknell Bulls forward dominance, Kyle Bruwer burst through under the poles with a classic big second row forward try, gratefully converted by 10, Matthew Dalrymple.
The second period ended with Bracknell ahead by the most tenuous of margins, 7-5 and the game on a knife edge. A famous victory against a formidable opponent was on the cards, but did we have enough in the tank, and in our hearts, to carry the task through to its conclusion?
We started the last 30 well, and had the Ealing men pinned down in the half. Suddenly we had a penalty against us and just as it looked as if Ealing would escape the pressure we had been piling onto them, there was a fumble in mid-field showing lightening quick reactions and some outstanding game-sense, Sam Clough conjured the ball from an Ealing players hands and dashed in under the posts for our second, also converted by Matthew Dalrymple, giving us a 14-5 lead. The unlikely victory was looking less unlikely but there were still 15 minutes on the clock and the Ealing boys were not done yet.
From the kick-off, they attacked well and after a period of pinning us back in our half, launched a fantastic multi-phase attack which found us narrow on defence and their winger went into the corner. Was this to be the undoing of all our hard work?
As it turned out, this was thankfully not to be the case and despite losing fly half Matthew Dalrymple to a broken rib and forward Trojan Tom Day to a knock on the knee, we were able to keep play in the Ealing half for the rest of the game with the help of some very well taken penalty kicks by Josh Johnson, now in for Matt at 10 and when Fergus Hill heaved the ball off the pitch after Bracknell were awarded a breakdown penalty with no time left on the clock, we had done it! Final score Bracknell U14a 14, Ealing Trailfinders RFC U14a 10.
Many thanks go to Ealing RFC for the toughest game we have played in quite some time, and for being excellent sports on the pitch and wonderful hosts off it. Your boys are a credit to your club and your referee was absolutely top notch. Thank you.
Special mention goes to No 8 Ben Torr, our man of the match, for a massive performance ball in hand, at the breakdown and in cover defence. From a team perspective, this was a monkey off our back that has been there for quite some time and a performance that will give us an enormous amount of confidence going forward into the 2014/15 season. Our collective memory of that dark day in under 9’s won’t hurt quite as much anymore!

Andy