Bracknell U9 C's aka the Mighty B2's -

BRFC U9 B2 team. At the Reading Festival

Another outing for the mighty B2’s, who were on a high after several wins from Maidenhead. The early misty start on Sunday morning for the U7 to U10 age group and the later start for the older players worked very well…..compressing day for some….and making it really long if a parent had a player in each age group!

We set about our strategy – let’s pick some forwards – everyone plays in every game! Making sure every player gets a fair share of game time. The team lineup was as follows.
Charley
Ross
Ross (with Scrum cap!)
Harry
Jack
Matthew
Jake
Thomas
Billy
Tom
Abby
Cameron
Benjamin
Will (I will blame your mum for a late start!)
The U9 pool was split into A and B with a total of 14 teams. In the B pool we had 3 games and a chance of the final.

Game 1 BRFC U9 B2 vs Reading B team. Result 4-0
The strategy was set, we now have some forwards….Cameron, Abby and Benjamin….yep they are quite tall and stronger than the average U9. The idea was simple….Crash ball and then see what happens. Billy to start with a pass to Cameron, plenty of ground made and the plan seems ton be working. Cameron blasted three tries and Jake carved in another. Scoring tries is one part of the story……Our defence was solid, plenty of commitment from Charley and Harry stopped reading in their Tracks. At the rucks Abby bossed the boys about winning the contest at the breakdown and helped Jake get over the line. Everyone played their part….4 rolling subs came on and reading got no let up. A clean sheet, not bad for the mighty B2’s.

Game 2 BRFC U9 B2 vs Maidenhead B team. Result 4-0
Another smash ‘em up game. Our forwards once again dominated. Harry got in on the action with a brilliantly try to match Cameron’s 3. Will missed the first game so on he went to regain his spurs. It is amazing to see how Will tackles the opposition’s biggest players and down they go. Lineout work made me laugh as the boys and girls had not really practiced this element of the game. Benjamin…..you throw in and Abby at the front and Cameron at the back…..Will scrum-half. Plenty of action upfront and we need to work on getting the passes away into space. Another clean sheet, meaning that the tackles were going in. Jack, Ross and Matthew all playing their part in the Great Defence. Everyone got stuck in and tried their hardest. I could not have asked for more.

Game 3 BRFC U9 B2 vs Slough/Pheonix Barbarian’s team. Result 3-5
On paper we should have won this game……but every now and then an exception occurs. Pheonix had 2 very tall and extremely quick players….who ran rings round our defence, which showed so much promise in the first 2 games….. both Ross’got onto the score sheet and we needed a couple more tries. Cameron bagged another but it was not enough. We gave their fast players too much space from the kick off and our commitment seemed to ebb and flow compared to the first games seemed. We needed the two Tom’s to get on the score sheet…….Our boys and girl made a great game of it and tried to come back but …as always the touch line and clock were against us. We came back too late to win the game.

We need to wait and see to find out who we where to play in the Pool runners-up game. We missed top spot by 1 point..6 BRFC to Slough/Pheonix’s 7… This avoided a BRFC U9 B vs B2 Final. Well done the U9 B’s for winning the U9B pool.

Game 4 BRFC U9 B2 vs Henley B team. Result 2-0
A tough test awaited us for 3rd spot in the pool. Henley put in strong performances in their group so another solid defence was required. We held the line with Abby and Billy getting stuck in. Eventually the pressure was too much and Henley broke our line. We had our chances but the wrong option was picked a couple of times……when games are tight a run out into touch is the turning point. The white line seemed to have a magnetic effect on the U9’s boots…what make leather and alloy studs gravitate to the touch line……The forwards effect runs in games 1 and 2 proved too little. A wider game was required but the boys and girl kept on going and more tackling by Benjamin, Charley, Jack, Matthew and Billy kept the score to more than respectable.

I great test of determination against some tough well drilled teams. A Massive well done to all the boys and girl in the mighty B2’s. This was the second competitive outing into contact and I was immensely proud of their achievement in coming 4th out of Eight teams, with our fellow B’s taking the top place in the U9B. My team player of the festival was Cameron and best effort was Abby.
There are some photos online at both https://www.pitchero.com/clubs/bracknell
and there was an on-site photographer www.vermont-images.co.uk

Please register on the Bracknell RFC website as a Supporter and Parent as there are over a hundred photos so far of our age group.

Coach Nigel