Bracknell U14s B lose to Maidenhead in cup semi final

A wet and windy morning at Maidenhead for our cup match.

We kicked off into the wind, and after some early scrappy play Maidenhead touched down for a 5-0 lead. That woke us up, and we moved into their half, Alex M did a great run from fly half to within 5m of their line, and we forced a scrum. Lewis C did a great pick and go from the back, sold an outrageous dummy to the whole Maids backline and crashed over to level at 5-5. The rest of the first half was really scrappy, with numerous knock-ons, but our scrum was increasingly dominant. Ali did a great try saving tackle by rolling their player onto his back, but eventually they broke through again, to go in 12-5 up at the break.

The second half carried on with more scrappy play and eventually we allowed another Maids try through, 17-5. Our heads could have dropped as the final whistle approached, but we really upped the aggression, drove multiple phases into their half, and finally the whole team deserved the try that Ethan scored for a 17-10 score. Full time came as we were playing some of our best rugby.

Lots of positives today: our scrum was very strong, regularly being told by the ref that we had pushed the 1.5m limit, our back line put in a huge number of tackles with Kyle particularly aggressive in the defensive tackle, Liam and Dylan P had some really strong driving runs, big Lewis had several runs where he nearly broke through all the tackles, Ali mauled like a demon as normal, and the ref commended Ruben on his captaincy and control of the front row in the scrum.

by Phil Wells