Teddington Turned Over At Bushy Park

One might have been forgiven for thinking that there would be one or two cobwebs to blow out of the Bracknell Under 13s closet when they took to the field in Bushy Park on Sunday morning. The unprecedented amount of rainfall to hit the Royal County since Christmas has meant that none of Lily Hill players had pulled on their team shirt for at least 42 days. During the enforced break the coaching team have been working hard on the team’s handling skills and defensive patterns and there was certainly evidence of the team’s hard work on display this weekend as they ran out convincing winners by 40 points to 10 with Teddington scoring two consolation tries once the game was already beyond them.

It only took five minutes for some strong forward play and slick handling and movement by the backs saw left wing James Williams outpace the Teddington defence to score under the posts, with centre Josh Zeller repeating the feat only a few minutes later, albeit by a slightly more direct route as he carved a path through the middle of the pitch.

Continued hard work in defence by forwards and backs alike repelled a number of attacks from Teddington with scrum half Jamie Brown being instrumental in directing operations at the breakdown and helping Bracknell turn over opposition possession and quickly turn desperate defence into fast flowing counter attacking rugby. One such turnover saw flanker Kane O’Leary run the ball out from underneath his own posts (reminiscent of Pierre Berbizier at Twickenham in 1991) with the team running the ball from one end of the field to the other allowing winger Sam Faulkner to touch down for the first of his two tries. Tom Hall, who had replaced Williams on the left wing, was not to be out done scoring a brace of tries of his own. Matt Dalrymple, who slotted five conversion kicks, controlled the game from fly half displaying a fine array of passing, incisive runs and judicious kicks into what was a very strong headwind.

Whilst the crowd might not have been quite as raucous as the 81555 that had packed into Twickenham on Saturday afternoon, the rugby on show showed just as much passion with the boys thoroughly deserving their victory.