As we are halfway through our league, I thought I give you some news of the under 13’s!
We have been very busy this year, our first game this year was a friendly against Crowborough on the 2nd of October, a heavy loss to us against a very well drilled Crowborough side 45-5. Then we travelled to Burgess Hill for another friendly where the boys played a superb game but lost narrowly 20-15, a game we lost in the first half due to a very slow start (something we do lot!).
For our first league game we did travel to Pulborough on the 16th of October.
At the warmup we could see that the kids were quite worried as Pulborough did have some quite big boys, and I mean BIG! They started the game already defeated and Pulborough scores 3 quick tries in under 5 minutes, we were losing every single scrum and ruck but finally managed to score a try in the last minute of the first half, by then we were losing 30-5.
After a good talk during half time and a change of tactics, the game change completely. The boys were winning every contact zone and we managed to bring back a bonus point from Pulborough but losing 35-25.
That I believe was the real start of our season as at the end of that game the boys realised that it doesn’t matter how big you are if you apply the right technique, you can bring down any player.
2 weeks later we travelled to East Grinstead for another friendly beating them 5-30!
Finally, our first well-deserved win of the season!
We could see now the difference of attitude and commitment from the boys, the mindset they have now changed completely.
For our second league game we played at home against Heathfield and Waldron beating them 50-0 taking all 5 points available and finally we played Chichester this week for our last league game of phase 1, beating them 60-10 another very convincing win when Chichester try hard to compete in the contact zones but when our boys are focussed, they are very hard to be beaten at the breakdown.
Anyway in 3 leagues games the boys have scored a staggering 27 tries conceding only 9 with a +90 points difference.
We are receiving Teddington on Sunday at Home next week (all friendly) and going to Lewes on Sunday 18th for a rugby 10’s tournament. Busy busy busy!
