Redemptive Loss for U13s

It's been a turbulent couple of weeks in the U13s. Lots of new players have been joining, which has massively bolstered training numbers and created a real selection headache for George, Mel, and Oli.

The Knights have been without a win in weeks, and morale was especially low after last weekend's heavy loss against Midsomer Norton. A huge emphasis was made on fronting up in defence, and with Harlequins having some extremely big players, this would prove to be instrumental in preventing a number of tries.

With the return of Riley Mair at fullback, our backline massively increased in confidence, knowing he'd stop pretty much anyone getting by him - this fuelled Wilf Hacker and Jayden Jefferies in the centres to put in their best defensive performance of the season, perhaps ever. It's very rare at age grade rugby to hear a collision between two players during a tackle, but Jayden managed to do it, and put the opposition player on his back at the same time.

The entire backline deserves commendation, as the Harlequins game plan revolved around trying to get larger forwards to carry through our backline, but this was foiled time and time again. When countering, Kingswood were lethal, and often took the ball from inside their 22 all the way up to the opposition tryline. Some work is needed on precision and being clinical within the 5m line, but the attack play was overwhelmingly positive.

In the forwards, Rylee Kenyon was again, outstanding. He's improved significantly since the beginning of the season, and donning a tasteful blue scrum hat, made multiple dominant carries and demonstrated that forwards can sidestep! Charlie Jacquens played 8 again, but could quite happily fare as an NFL punter, as his clearance kicks went from one try line to the other, which most senior rugby players would struggle to achieve. The front row played very well and stopped a number of scrums from going in Harlequins favour, and considering Quins' weight advantage, this is really promising.

I could write and write about the rest of the players individually, but everyone put in a great performance and it's a game where despite getting the loss, team spirit was very high afterwards, and the lads were proud of the result.

Gordano will be tough opposition this coming Sunday, but if we replicate the aggression and prowess, they won't know what's hit them.