On Friday night we played in our floodlit Mini Tournament at Old Mid Wives. We fielded two teams - the Warriors and the Warthogs - and played Old Mid Wives, Warlingham and ourselves.

The standard of play was high and we had some very tough matches. The Warriors won all of their games with the toughest game being against the Warthogs. The first game against Mid Wives was a good work out with the scoring threat of a very nippy team comprised of Louis (mega fast), Bobby (mega elusive), Theo (great running lines and passing), Teddy (super footwork) and William (very, very good support work and running) meaning that we scored a lot of tries. The second game against Warlingham was a tougher one and the defence needed to be really good and it was. The tackling was awesome but particularly from Luke, Noah and Tommy. That level of tackling meant that what should have been a very hard game was a relatively easy 7-3 win.

The Warthogs played first against Warlingham and despite generating 7 turnovers through very very committed tackling lost out by a couple of tries largely because we dropped a lot of passes. That was because it took us too long to realise that 20 metre spin passes in the rain under floodlights was not a great idea. We also dropped the ball when tackled a few times which hurt us. The second game against Midwives was a 7-1 massacre as Mid Wives were tackled to a standstill and Thomas, Finn, Seb, Akash and Tom C ran riot going forwards.

The last game against the Warriors was a right grudge match and the toughest match of the tournament. The Warriors had the running threat but the Warthogs had the committed defenders with River, Alfie, Sam H, Finn and Max putting in some huge tackles. The match was edged by the Warriors (but only just) and there were some amazing offloads (Akash take a bow), super tries (Sam H) and great defensive lines from both teams.

The learning from the Mini Tournament was that:

We need to pass to people in more space more often and before we get tackled
We need to hold on to the ball with two hands so we don't drop it when tackled
When it is wet we need to pass to the closest player
The Dummy is a good weapon - take a bow Alfie Brady
We really need to spread out in v shape when the runner is tackled

Well done all.