In what would be a preview to next weekends Berkshire Cup Semi Final, Bracknell U13s Development squad took on a powerful Thatcham Squad in wonderful weather conditions.

The match began brightly for Bracknell, as, within the first inute, Oscar Heimmann pounced on a fumbled ball, to crash over for the first try of the match. Shortly after, some simple passes put Riley Lewington into space, and he danced through the gap to jot down try number two. Bracknell looked to be playing with high tempo and it worked wonders as Alex Ali exploited the speace out wide to jot down for try number three. Thatcham then came to life and from the restart gathered the ball nicely, put it out to their big winger, who barrelled through a broken Bracknell defence, to get Thatcham on the scoreboard. One minute later and Alex was back on form, scoring a wonderful try up the middle of the pitch. Four minutes later, he completed the hat-trick and took the scores to 4-1. A bulldozing run from Thatcham's second row saw defenders bounced off and Thatchams second try, just before the half time whistle.

The second half saw another strong Bracknell start. The ball gathered celanly, was passed to a charging Harrison Bennett, who was not to be stopped, scoring his first ever try in Bracknell colours. The tide, momentum and dominance now turned. Bracknell lost defensive shape and power, which was exploited by the Thatcham team, who went onto score three more tries, narrowing the scoreline down to 6-5. Things were looking tense and tight until Bracknell became more settled. Hayden Lawson began to snipe from the base at nine, breaking the defensive line on mulitple occassions and putting his body into the contact zone with great effect. Billy Brumpton slotted into the backs and distributed and kicked with precision in his best performance this season. As the game went into the final quarter, a long kick was gathered by Riley, who put on the afterburners and danced his way through the smallest of gaps, to score try number seven for Bracknell. A tense few minutes then saw Alex once again get onto the end of a slick miss pass from Finnley Bond, to run in from half way to score his fourth and Bracknell's last try of the game.

The final score of 8 to 5 was a great representation of ambition and desire from Bracknell, who kept battling until the final whistle. Thathcam were a tough test and everything is set for a great semi-final next weekend.

Man of the Match went to Hayden Lawson for his outstanding work rate, pace and fotowork, that kept the defence guessing all day long.