U11's Match Report
v Wanstead & Chelmsford
Sunday 18th October 2015
Romford & GP U11 vs Wanstead / Chelmsford U11
J.Roberts (1), F.McCloud (2), D.Wood, J.Gutteridge (3), T.Portelli (1), L.Walker, N.Moonie, M.Tranter, E.Taylor, C.Pearson, N.Robinson, O.Butler
Another tough fixture faced Romford this week in the form of our friends from Wanstead, plus our first encounter with a side from Chelmsford.
In much the same way as the previous week, Romford were frustratingly slow to start and never really made much of an account of themselves in the first match of the day. Wanstead were very well organised and showed great application of the new format whilst retaining good standard skills and a wealth of athletic players. As was the case against Epping, Romford were found wanting in defence after initial first up tackles only served to slow down the onslaught. With some particularly large ball carriers making powerful runs up from the back of the breakdown, it didn’t take too many phases of play before the defence was breached. When in possession, Romford did manage to start stringing some prolonged passages of play together, but communication among the players was very poor and they never really managed to ignite their performance. Credit to a very good Wanstead side, who in the end won comfortably to nil.
After a break in between games, during which we hoped the players would take on board some of the lessons handed out in match one, Romford faced Chelmsford. This proved to be a complete reversal of the first fixture, in which the home side were able to dominate in attack and defence, and inevitably showed far greater enthusiasm when finding space to run into and time on the ball. As good as it was to see our side running in tries; from Finn McCloud, Joe Gutteridge, Jack Roberts and Teddy Portelli, the contrast to the first match was such that the team lost shape and was a little guilty of not executing moves and plays that would be needed in tougher encounters. The basics were good, with no dropped restarts or many obvious handling errors and to hold any team to nil takes 20 mins of full commitment, strong tackling and effort at the breakdowns. However, the same commitment needs to be shown against those tougher opponents who open the scoring and get off to a better start.
Good in places, but plenty to work on before Eton Manor next week