Winter has finally arrived. We woke up this Sunday morning to a ground frost, below zero temperatures and another rugby festival – this time it was Richmond’s turn to host.
The boys arrived before 9am for an earlier than usual start and we spent the first half an hour doing drills which kept us on our toes for the tournament. It was very cold and we had some freezing hands and feet, a few tears and even the odd boy heading back to the car to get a dose of hot air to warm their frostbitten fingers!
First up was Haversham; a close game followed with each team trading tries in the first half. We started where we left off at the London Scottish Festival the week before with some good attacking play and mazy runs, scoring to lead 2-1 early on. Unfortunately our defence then let us down as we let a Haversham player run straight through us to tie the game at 2-2. A serious talking to followed from the coaches at the break and the next half saw us tighten our defensive line and led by Lucas' example we put in some much better tackling. The game ended a draw at 4-4.
Our next game was against Richmond. The team played some great rugby with everyone getting involved with some really good runs, support play, offloads and better organisation and communication in defence. We won with a convincing 5-2 victory which would have been even more convincing but for a couple of over eager hand offs that led to turnovers.
Next up were the Drifters who we beat 6-2 before a 5-3 victory over Richmond's first string side.
Unbeaten with 3 victories and one draw, London Scottish U9s were crowned winners of the tournament and as important as the win we also won the award for being the best fair play team!
Next week we are at Staines and hopefully we can build on our new and improved defence and tackling, in particular remembering to be flat up in a line to give the opposition very little space to run into and ensuring that we make those tackles early.
Well done to all the boys! Medals and iced buns were a good way to celebrate!
