News & EventsLatest NewsCalendar
A&C U8s take Beaconsfield RFC Festival by Storm!

A&C U8s take Beaconsfield RFC Festival by Storm!

Dave Cahill30 Sep 2019 - 17:44
Share via
FacebookTwitter
https://www.chilternrugby.com/

Sharks & Scorpions dominate first U8 festival of the season with outstanding display

I’m sure that all of the coaches, parents and siblings that supported us at Beaconsfield RFU’s festival on Sunday were as proud as I was of our fantastic ruby stars. I had a big smile on my face until I woke up on Monday morning!

This was a fascinating first festival of the 2019/20 season and really showed the quality and depth of our playing squad. The organisers opted against implementing the seven-tag turnover rule and this counted against those teams, like A&C, with great defensive technique. Had this rule been applied I am convinced that several of the A&C games would have finished with no score to the opposition, such was the relentless ferocity of our players’ tagging. It was so impressive to see the opposition teams being forced backwards towards their own try lines by the outstanding defensive efforts of the A&C players. It was also great to see our children starting to take responsibility for the on-field defensive organisation and communicating with each other to form up an effective defensive line.

From an attacking perspective, the standard of the running, passing and teamwork was head and shoulders above all of the competition and this was reflected in the match results. From a coaching perspective, it was especially pleasing to see the children listening to suggestions (well, sometimes) and implementing them on the field of play. This was most most evident in those players that are starting to time their support runs to take the ball at speed; this proved impossible for the opposition to defend against.

I am obviously not impartial but we clearly had the two best teams in the U8 age group and I can only assume we will be getting a bad reputation for fielding streamed sides. It is satisfying that we select all of our teams on a mixed ability, first confirmed, first selected basis.

The team summaries are as follows:
Sharks: P5 W4 D1 L0
Scorpions: P5 W4 D1 L0

It’s not fair to single any players out but the top scorers were Elliot Ross (Sharks) with nine tries and Edward Harris (Scorpions) with twelve. Here is a photo of the full squad.

Further reading