Our first outing of the 2021-22 season was a friendly away at Cobham, with our 30 boys against their 20. We played two “matches”, and ran out 13-7 victors in the first and 31-0 runners-up in the second.
Highlights of the day are as follows:
Liam B scoring all our points in the first game, with 2 penalties (including one from 45m), as well as converting his own try which came from his chip kick into the 22 that the Cobham fullback fumbled and dropped, allowing Liam to slide in, steal the ball and score;
Alfie for his tireless work rate and that amazing line break…. Why he didn’t get away only the referee knows;
Matt B for tackling 2 or 3 players all at pretty much the same time;
Oski leaping like a salmon to take a high ball and managing to land, roll, and recycle the ball successfully under a lot of pressure from the oncoming Cobham forwards;
Luke C for completing an exceptional amount of tackles in the second match, and being at the centre of lots of our best action;
Will W being last man standing as full back when one of the Cobham “man-mountain” forwards charged through at full speed, and Will tackled him in the 22 and rolled him into touch.
We were definitely rusty and lacking match practice in some areas, but there were plenty of positives that should give us confidence to move forward into the rest of the season.
Next weekend brings home league matches against Amersham & Chiltern and also Shipston, so hopefully we can take our performance to the next level across the whole squad.

by Phil Wells