C team win plate at Vandals Festival

An early start and the loss of an hours sleep. Off to Weybridge went the mighty C team –all 10. The Desborough Island location for Vandals had surprisingly efficient parking and the base outside the clubhouse was setup quickly.

Team
Jake
Cade
Benjamin
Abbie
Tom
Thomas
Will
Alex
Ross
Thor

Matches
First game versus Guildfordians was a close run thing, not sure on the score but I think the result went their way 3-0. A couple of quick breakaway tries by a good B team, who actually went on to win the main cup.

Second match in the pool and we started to fire. Abby opened up the scoring account and then Cade and Alex, with Abby finishing another fine try. 4-3 to the good against Weybridge Vandals.

Next game was not pretty, a great Old Emmanuel A team and, we shocked them with Jake scoring the first try. They reacted with vengeance and we had a couple of players out of position and they ran riot 1-8 (Tackle failure for 4 sole runners scoring their tries). The usual missed knock on’s (3), forward passes (too many) and the luck went their way. The numbers looked very bad and our kids put up a good game and the score does not reflect the effort they put in. With a shaper Ref this could have been a very much closer game.

Plate time......Semi-Final

Now that the A teams can play each other, and we really focused on the task in hand. Semi-Final time and we came upon a Farnborough squad I have seen before and I was our turn to run riot. Ross, Cade and Abby were all in on the scoring act and at 5-0 with the last play Farnborough pulled one back. Things started to click and the players new what they were meant to do. Special mention goes to Ross, who we placed in the forwards with Abby and Benjamin, for never giving up on a struggling team mate and impressively ripping balls out of the mauls. Scrum half Will stuck to his task and made two darting run and he will be a handful in the future. The Fly-half for the festival was Cade, who again stuck to his task of power running and with the support of the forwards kept on going...took several players to stop him. Tackles seemed to be going in and the team looked very different from the one that started.

Final Time.....

Weybridge again! – 1-1 (but Bracknell take the plate on Tries scored countback and maybe justice for winning against them in the pool)

It is really nice for the C squad after a new year of contact to come away with the Weybridge Plate. Players deserving a special mention.....Cade, Abby, listening to the other coaches I could hear them talking about these two. Thomas played his part on the Wing with Thor and their discipline was good. For the Semi and Final most players had switched on and the tackles went in from Jake, Benjamin, Alex, Cade, Thor, Tom (yes especially little Tom for bringing down the biggest U9 I have seen for a while).

I would like to thank Bruce and Carl for helping lead the team today and the mums and dads on the sidelines, shouting their support.
I seem to have caught the Sun today and have a very bright face but really this is just me bursting with pride over a great, hard fought Plate win. Photos are on Bracknell RFC....Great one of Jake scoring and Abby!

I am really proudly of the team today and after the heavy defeat they came back, as coaches we are on the sidelines and the kids do it for themselves and they earned their trophy in the sun today....Well done all. Please make sure you let them know how proud I was of them today!

Festival Player - Ross Hickman. (I can easily forgive him the missed try when he was tripped.....) He played with heart, scored and seemed to rip the ball and got really stuck in to the forwards role – might have found his sweet spot!

Ross has the honour of the trophy first and we will circulate this so all the boys can show off at School or take a few photos with it!