Bromley Festival

On a cool clear morning the blue and gold army set sail for the Bromley festival and for all but all but one of our U9’s team their first taste of a festival with contact. First up were Westcombe Park and a team who looked physically wider if not necessarily taller than us. We started slowly with a bit too much bunching and trying to hog the ball lead to Jerry’s tablecloth being mentioned again. Our cause wasn’t helped however when we lost Dom to a hand injury(reoccurrence of lego induced injury) and Henry Gore to a bash on the nose drawing blood. Park’s greater presence was key as they came out on top, although their neck high tackling clearly needs some refinement.

After a break and discussion we assessed a few things to improve on, we lost Dom but patched up Henry and went back out against Bromley our hosts. This was a much better display with much stronger tackling and better use of the huge pitch. The game was a closer affair which Bromley just edged but our spirits were clearly lifted by the team’s ability to learn from mistakes in first game and improve on them.

Next up though were Sevenoaks always a strong outfit at all age groups but this inspired us to our best performance of the day. Brilliant running, passing and particularly our tackling saw us get out first seven tackle turnover of the day. Oli K in particular was on fire and scored a memorable length of the field try amongst the five he collected in this match alone. Whilst no official scores are kept anymore in the age groups under 12 the Sevenoaks coach was fortunately counting to keep us updated. When Oaks pulled one back in second half his cry of 6-3 we are back in it sadly was slightly premature as Jude finished off a good move to add a seventh to our try count.

It is often the way when you think then that we’ve cracked it you come up against someone ahead of you and this again proved the case in the next game against Cranbrook. Their strong runners and excellent tacklers were too good for us and they ran out winners. I think by the way I saw them celebrating after their last game they were the unofficial winners of the group.

Finally after a long wait out last match was against OE’s. The team were now tired but kept going well and in match with some slightly strange refereeing we managed to match our opponents try for try to end up with a draw at the end of the game.

All in all though the boys present should be really proud of the way they performed as they played with heart, skill and bravery and particularly pleasing was the steady improvement during the course of the day. Oli K was man of the day with an astonishing performance not only of fantastic running and try scoring but also great tackling. He however was certainly not alone in supreme efforts. Jude was fantastic with his try scoring and great tackling technique. He was also commended by a referee as despite taking a knock got back up to congratulate all the victorious opponents after the game. Callum in his first festival played his heart out kept going, showed us he can tackle and topped it off with a great try in last game. Oli J showed a new found ability to score tries, Henry was exceptionally brave to come back from injury and keep going. Mark and Max were strong and committed and Archie showed us further examples of his devastating pace and trickery.

Still work to do but a terrific effort all round keep it up team!