Sidcup U12s beat Old Colfeians U12s

Buoyed by the recent victory over Dartfordians and perhaps motivated by the number of new players coming into the squad who will soon be vying for places in the match day squads, our U12s team travelled the short distance to Horn Park for our 2nd away match of the new season against Old Colfeians. It was a fresh, bright morning, conditions under foot perfect for a good game of rugby, although the strong wind threatened to play havoc with our tactical kicking game.

After a short warm up and jog back to the changing room for a last minute gee up from the coaches and captain for the day Tommy – we took the field, again resplendent in our new playing strip. The game started tentatively with both sides probing the defensive lines looking for the all-important gaps. Gradually though Sidcup began to apply more pressure and were driving forward with ball in hand as well as forcing some errors when Colfes got possession.

The pressure began to tell and it wasn’t long before we opened the scoring. Now I have to confess, perhaps as a result of the U12 dad’s night out the day before, my recollection of all the try scorers and the order in which they scored them is a little hazy - but over the next 10 minutes or so we managed to run in 5 scores. At 25-0 up after about 15 minutes played, we decided to ring the changes, to ensure everyone got plenty of game time and to play in different positions / combinations.

Maybe those switches, coupled with a little bit of complacency contributed to us allowing Colfes back into the game. To their credit OC’s didn’t allow their chins to drop and in the 5 minutes or so before half time played some flowing rugby and fought their way back into the match. They had a couple of tall, elusive runners and the passes that were going astray early in the game started to stick and enabled them to score 3 quick-fire tries – to make it Sidcup 25 OC’s 15 at the break.

After reminding the boys to go back to basics, the second half again started quite tensely and indeed remained nip and tuck for the whole 20 minutes. We maintained pretty good defensive discipline and shape, and really started attacking rucks and mauls with the “controlled aggression” we’ve been trying to instil the last couple of seasons. We always managed to stay in front and keep OC’s at arms-length in terms of the scoreboard, running in 3 further tries in the process to run out 40-25 victors in a hard-fought game, but one played in a great spirit. Thanks to Mike and Ben at OC’s for their hospitality and refereeing the game in a clear and consistent manner.

It was another really strong team performance, everyone contributing well in defence and attack and being asked to play in a couple of different positions. In terms of the tries scored, the pick of them were Draven using his pace and stepping ability to jink through several tackles to score our 1st in the corner, Jonathan wrong-footing the defence a couple of times with a clever show-and-go and a quick tap penalty, Jack handing off 4 players in one run to dive over in the far corner and Oscar using his physical prowess to suck in defenders and barge his way to the line.

The learning point from the day has to be to protect the ball better in contact; too many players from both sides with one handed carries making the ball easy to rip or dislodge. We’ll work on that in training next week, but for now well done everyone involved and onwards and upwards to Park House in a couple of weeks’ time. Let’s see if we can keep our little winning streak going!