Thurrock U11 vs Romford & GP U11

J.Roberts (1), D.Wood (3), J.Gutteridge (10), T.Portelli, L.Walker, N.Moonie, M.Tranter (3), N.Robinson, O.Butler (4), J.Blake

With winter well and truly descending this week, the prospect of standing in the cold on Sunday morning wasn’t to everyone’s liking and unfortunately we were abnormally low on numbers for our trip to Thurrock.
Of the 10 players in attendance, both Nev and Teddy were unwell and despite them both making brave and hugely appreciated attempts to play, we only fielded 8 (against 9) for most of the 2 matches. To make our task even more daunting, within 60 seconds of the kick-off Thurrock managed to put one of their pace-men clear into space to open the scoring. The coaches could have been forgiven for thinking it was only to be expected given the circumstances, but if we had taken the time to discuss it we would have missed out boys score 6 or 7 unanswered tries in a matter of minutes. Thurrock’s defence was persistent, but only in slowing our players down and more often than not we were able to off-load to ever present supporting team-mates. With the option to ‘receive the kick’ being continuously taken by the hosts, Romford (who executed their drop-kicks well with the exception of “Mr New All Black Boots”) were able to chase down the restart and apply instant pressure deep in their opponents half. This is something that our boys have worked hard on in training and with plenty of opportunity to apply that all important pressure on the ball carrier, mistakes came regularly and we were able to capitalise. Joe Gutteridge will always impress when given as much time and space as was this case in this game, and eventually scored 7. But equally as impressive was the work rate of Jack, Osheen, Matt and in particular Dylan who must have covered every blade of grass twice (in those new boots) on a large pitch and too few players. Despite the score-line, tackles still had to be made regularly to win back possession, and in this department our team didn’t disappoint. Liam and Josh made notable contributions, unfortunately in Liam’s case resulting in a twisted ankle, and Osheen had an outstanding match with and without the ball, but the relentlessness shown by the whole team was really pleasing.
Romford ran in 14 tries to Thurrock’s 3 by the end of the first match, and a second shorter match finished 7-2 to us as well.
Definitely worth wrapping up for, great effort everyone.