Match report - Beccehamians Festival - T-Rexs

Unlike last week the boys started brightly and were full of beans, although some were too full of beans such as Ronnie who had obviously eaten some for breakfast which we all got wind of very early on.

For our first match against Cranbrook the team lined up with Bobby and Jaxson on the wings to give us pace, Christian and Harri in the middle as the demon taggers with Pranjal and Seb acting as the link between the two. Bobby made an instant impact with his strong running and try scoring, and all the boys ran and defended really well and the relentless pressure created several turnovers and we won 6-3.

For the second game against Old Alleynians, James H and Ronnie made an instant impact both running straight and at pace. Very hard to stop and good to see the boys with ball in hand. Christian made a great interception and ran the length of the pitch to score, although he ran out of steam near the opposition try line and only just scraped over. Again we created two turnovers and won 6-3.

The third game against Old Dunstonians was tough, primarily as the opposition tags were very short and stuck on to their shorts with super-glue. In the end the boys got to grips (forgive the pun) with these immovable tags and took the shorts as well. In this game possibly the try of the day was scored by Harri who ran the length of the field, stepping off both feet to snake his way through the opposition. Jaxson was not only his usual strong attacking force but was really in the zone with his defensive tagging duties. Unfortunately for one glaring reason we drew this game 7 -7.

The last game was a close run thing against Old Dartfordians and played by both teams in a really good spirit. Fitness levels were not good for some (you know who you are) and also like last week we lost concentration. Seb scored a great try in the corner with excellent support play to link up with Harri. Crucially we applied pressure and created a turnover and ended up winning 6-5

The team did well again this week and played all matches in a very good spirit. I am pleased to say that not once this week did we go into touch (well done Jaxson, excellent effort) even though we gently shepherded several of the opposition teams off the field of play on several occasions without any contact. Also almost no running backwards and a lot less running sideways which was good to see. Areas to work on fitness, concentration levels and the offside rule, although at the moment the boys are young and look very innocent so can get away with it.

Results:

Old Whits 6 V Cranbrook 3
Old Whits 6 V Old Alleynians 3
Old Whits 7 V Old (sticky) Dunstonians 7
Old Whits 6 V Old Dartfordians 5

Match Report - Vampires - Beccehamians Festival
The Vampires had a good day at the Beccehamians Festival. The team's defence was much much better and we gave every team we played against a hard time! We were unbeaten again!

Standouts in the day were:

Thomas K who locked his wing down preventing any runs on that side and scored lots of tries. Thomas is seen by the team as a leader so needs to boss the defence more
River with great support play resulting in lots of tries and some great long runs. However, River needs to work harder to get back in the lien in defence to be a great all round player.

Tom C with really good defence, lots of running and a couple of scorching direct runs. Tom is a good runner and needs to be more confident in shouting for the ball when he is the closest player to a tagged ball carrier.
Alfie with immense defence and some mazy runs resulting in crucial tries but to be the player he can be he needs to trust all of his team and pass when tagged to the first supporting player to arrive
Cameron with his finishing of so many tries, a natural winger who just needs to work on his tagging to be amazing
Tommy T who was a pain for other teams to play against and a serious straight runner. Tommy needs to work on his passing now to be a complete player
Akash who put in a good all round performance with tries and lots of Tags but now needs to work on keeping his distance at restarts so he has enough time and space to catch the ball and run when passed to

The key learning points for the team from the Festival were;

1. We defend very well and better than the teams we play but we could be a great defence if we worked harder to get back into a defensive line across the pitch all the time

2. We need to keep our Christmas tree shape with 2 meters between players at restarts

3. Give soft passes to the receiving player to ensure the pass is easy to catch

4. Look for space and run into that space when it is there

All in all the team played very very well and should be proud of another unbeaten Festival record. And we scored more tries than the T Rexs!

The Under 8 Coaches