Cranbrook Festival

We were allowed to take two teams to the festival with Caz and Glenn as coaches, while Ricky ran training at Sidcup for the rest of the players.

Caz’s Colts (Sidcup A) – won 3, drew 1.
My team played fantastically well, and most importantly, they began to play as a team. Every single player made a valuable contribution and their individual strengths are really beginning to show.
Both Oliver and Sam showed their super speedy and jinky running all festival, resulting in healthy competition between the two about who had scored the most tries, and I’m going to have to give them nicknames now! Sam is ‘Lightning’ to reflect his speed and love of running similar lines to a lightning strike, and Oliver has to be ‘Flash’ on account of his burst of speed and to reflect what the opposition see as he runs past them!

Game 1: Sidcup 9, Beccechamians A 9
Team showed glimpses of what became apparent was a secret weapon in our defence. George was both rapid and tenacious in his quest to grab opposition tags. Thomas put in a strong performance with great support play and a good run, and Alfie set up James for a lovely try by running straight for most of the pitch and giving a very accurate pass for James to run the rest and get the try.
Tries: Samuel 4, Oliver 3, Thomas 1, James 1

Game 2: Sidcup 8, Cranbrook A 6
Sam showed his trademark fast running, but it was Oliver who crossed the line a spectacular 7 times! George again demonstrated that he is a tagging machine, and also came away with a try. Alfie got over the try line, but unfortunately it was the wrong one (come on, we’ve all done it)! He more than made up for it with another storming run up the pitch, to set Oliver up to score the try.
Tries: Oliver 7, George 1

Game 3: Sidcup 8, Tunbridge Wells 6
Alfie again had some strong runs and showed very good tagging by getting up quickly on the opposition. James also had some good runs, and scored a try when George generously passed to him instead of grounding the ball himself (not sure George realised where he was)! George then scored 2 tries. Sam demonstrated his wiggliest of runs and scored 3 tries.
Tries: Samuel 3, George 2, James 2, Oliver 1

Game 4: Sidcup 9, Medway 5
Oliver ‘Flash’ and Samuel ‘Lightning’ scored all our tries. George ‘Tagging Machine’ put in an epic performance in defence, and a particularly amusing Haka complete with arm slapping and chanting at the opposition mid-way through the match! Great support play on show from Thomas, Alfie and James rounded off the day.
Tries: Samuel 5, Oliver 4

A big well done to all the players – we are very proud of the way they all played!

Big thanks to Pete (James’s dad) and Nick (Oliver’s dad) for helping round up the team, warming them up while I was reffing, keeping the scores/scorers, and parents for their support. Also to Zoe, whose organisational skills keep us coaches on our game and in the right place at the right time!

Glenn’s Wallabies (Sidcup B) won 2, lost 2
Excellent team effort. All players passed and tagged well and all scored tries.
Their confidence grew throughout the tournament and was a pleasure to watch. The team have made great progress from the start of the season and I'm really proud of the whole squad. All players are now showing a great awareness of the rules, they are getting into great positions and using the pitch well. They just need to watch that they are behind the ball so the ball carrier can pass to them when they are tagged.

My team fought really hard in all four games. The two games we won were extremely close and we kept fighting until the final whistle. In the two games we lost we were caught out by a couple of really fast players who, despite our best efforts, were almost impossible to tag.

Game 1: Sidcup 7, Old Elthamians 6
Very close game, draw at half time but we grew in confidence in the second half. Darcy had an excellent game. She showed determination and commitment in her tagging. Mason has grown also into a very good all round player, he shows an excellent understanding of the game and gets into spaces really well.
Tries: Mason 3, Darcy 2, Daniel 1, Stanley 1

Game 2: Sidcup 4, Tonbridge Judds 9
Tough game, opposition had a couple of really fast players and we struggled to get tags in when they had the ball. William finally got on the score sheet after having three tries disallowed, he never gave up though!!
Tries: Stanley 3, William 1

Game 3: Sidcup 9, Cranbrook 8
Against the host team, always going to be a hard game.
Very close, great performance from Daniel coming back to score six tries after injuring his foot in the previous game and hurting his arm whilst scoring a try at the beginning of this game, he was determined not to be subbed though!
Tries: Daniel 6, William 2, Mason 1

Game 4: Sidcup 5, Beccehamians 9
Another team with a couple of very fast players that we struggled to catch. Well done to Stanley though who never gave up chasing players right to the line to get their tags. The referee in this game commented on his amazing level of commitment - well done!
Tries: Stanley 4, Darcy 1

We now have a couple of months before our next festival to consolidate what we've learnt.

Big thanks to Ian (Stanley’s Dad) for helping with coaching on the day, and parents for their support.