Bees u11 vs Old Eds

The pitch was sodden, the fingers were frozen but the quality of the rugby on display was unaffected by the inhospitable conditions. Both Bees and Old Eds contributed to a fabulous feast of running rugby and treated the chilly spectators to some glorious tries. The match started with Bees throwing everything at Ed’s defence but the defence proved impenetrable until the very last second of the first half. A final foray into the Eds half and some slick handling gave Fraser enough space to slide in at the corner.
In the second half Bees once again started strongly but were again frustrated by the tenacity of the Ed’s tackling. Brendan and Louie combined well in the middle of the pitch to create space and finally the defence ran out of tacklers allowing Brendan to run away to score. Oliver was next to trouble the score sheet as he too found a chink in the defence to race clear to score and when Will B crashed his way through the opposition to sprint in for a try it looked as if Old Ed’s heads would drop. It is therefore greatly to their credit that Eds finished the game the stronger and just before the half ended managed to muscle the ball over Bees line for their first try.
As the next half began it was clear that both sides were now fired up and ready and the next few halves of rugby produced some wonderful moments of team play. Robert was at the heart of everything running with the ball in two hands to keep the opposition guessing, he made space for the wingers. Tyler benefitted from the extra space and added three tries to his tally. Robert also crossed for a well taken try. Moncef and Eddie ran powerfully all morning sucking defenders to them and excellent hands at the breakdown from Luca and Charlie gave the half back, Noah and Louie brilliant ball to work with. Louie made some muscular runs through the heart of the Eds line whilst Noah displayed superb distribution and some excellent kicking skills.
Will A made some jinky runs to get the ball over the gain line and Joe was always popping up to take the ball up field or distribute at the right time. Summer was also showing off her fine handling skills popping the ball away from the contact point to put the runners in to space. Josh had a powerful match using his vast stride to cause problems for the tacklers.
With the increased organisation and pressure from Bees, gaps started to appear in the Eds defence. The Bees handling was superb and wonderful distribution gave Curtis the space to score a blistering try. Stephen also found himself on the end of a crisp passing move to score as did Charlie who pleaded with Oliver to give him the ball just before the try-line and Oliver unselfishly obliged. Charlie then followed this up a moment later with his second try of the day.
Despite the superb performance from Eds, Bees got better and better as the morning progressed and began to perform the type of running rugby that would put the first team to shame. They really played as a team today and were playing for each other. The beautiful unselfish play of players like Robert and Oliver made me really proud today and I felt very honoured that I get to coach such a great bunch of kids.