Bracknell U13a Hurricanes beaten by the Blues

By John Halley

Match report by Ian Manners

On Sunday April 7th Bracknell U13 Hurricanes faced Newbury Blues in the Trophy Final of the Berkshire U13’s Cup at hosts Reading Abbey’s Peppard Road ground.
Newbury kicked off uphill and within nine minutes found themselves 15-0 up before Bracknell centre, Zach Pugh intercepted a pass on Newbury’s 22 metre line and sprinted towards the posts before he was tackled a metre short by the Blues covering right wing. As Zach was going to ground he popped the ball up to Sam Sershall who was following up to score in typical second rower fashion! 15-5 to Newbury. The score remained the same at half time.
Another slow start to the half by the Hurricanes saw the Blues stretch their lead with four more tries in the next eleven minutes with some excellent offloading and passing by the Newbury backs and forwards.
Bracknell bounced back after a quick tap penalty by Sam Sershall 20 metres out who passed to captain, Will Evans, who drew the cover to put centre, Zach Pugh away to score in the corner, 35-10 to Newbury.
The Bracknell boys began to play with more confidence and the next try came from another tap penalty by prop, Eddie Blackman to put Sam Sershall over to score his second, 35-15 Newbury.
Unfortunately the Bracknell boys began to tire as the tackle count began to tell on them and they allowed Newbury to score three more tries from good passing, an offload and the final one from a cross kick for their left wing to score in the corner. The final score 50-15 to Newbury.
The score didn’t really reflect the closeness of the game and the Newbury coaches commented afterwards that the game was very competitive and if we had been more clinical at times we could have closed the gap on the scoreboard. Well done Newbury.