| Youth Reports - 22/23/24 March 2008 |
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| Written by Andrew Baron | |
| Saturday, 22 March 2008 | |
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Under 16's Northampton Saints Tournament In conditions that veered between bright sunshine and snow showers, Shelford earnt a tournament win on the day Saints themselves won to return to the Premiership. In the two pool games, Shelford showed they were back to being the dominant Cambridgeshire side after beating the best that a combined Huntingdon / Peterborough side could throw at them, as well as overcoming a combined St Neots / St Ives side after going behind. Shelford met Olney in a tough final bringing no result - honours even, however, at half time in the Saints / Exeter Chiefs game, Shelford were given the medals and the trophy to take home.
Pool - Shelford 10 Huntingdon/Peterborough 0 George Newnham scored the opener with one of a series of his customary breaks through the pack, followed from the kick off by Jack Lines showing his class with a carving run after a series of solid rucks. Alasdair Paterson excelled himself with a great Man of the Match performance, never letting clean ball out without a challenge. Pool - Shelford 12 St Neots / St Ives 5 A fumbled defensive clearance gifted the combined Saints the opening score, but Shelford power and passion turned the game as Pearce Staples shimmied through the defence to 'touch down' in the corner. Score of the day came from Man of the Match Jamie Hirst with his debut Shelford try - he took the ball on from 15 metres out, when held up, the pack arrived and pushed him over for a well earned try, Jack Lines converted. Final - Shelford 0 Olney 0 Despite some excellent defence on the Shelford line, followed by a series of moves up the field spoilt by knock ons the decisive score that seemed imminent, eluded a resurgent Shelford, notable was Man of the Match Tom Preston who's moves off the scrum stifled the Olney back line. A great performance with another trio of injuries to deal with! Tour Games 24.3.08 Shelford Under 14’s 15 RBW Heidelberg 12 Shelford under 14’s entertained RBW of Heidelberg on Easter Monday, in the last of their Easter Tour games. RBW are a selection side from the six teams within Heidelberg . Up until this weekend, they have been unbeaten for the last three years, and you can see that their strength lies within some very slippery backs who attack from great depth, allied with some astute kicking and quick chasers. Having seen RBW take apart Sawston and Linton VC school teams on Thursday, and then doing the same to a County B/development squad on Sunday, the danger signs were already there for us to see. If Shelford were to compete well, it had to be with a massive effort from the forwards in starving the RBW backs of as much ball as possible, allied with an aggressive defence to close them down quickly. The match started with Shelford very much in the ascendancy, and dominated and secured possession for the first quarter of the game, giving RBW no chance to get any turnover ball. Good ball retention by the forwards and centres was backed up by great support, but good RBW defence kept the game scoreless. The concern for Shelford was that domination & territory hadn’t been converted into any points, knowing that an RBW counter-attack was on the cards at some stage. Shelford did finally manage to stretch the RBW defence, and great quick hands by the backs put Nick Webb into space on the wing for him to outstrip their defence and score in the corner, 5-0.RBW came back strongly at Shelford, with a number of free-flowing moves. A forward pass thwarted a certain try, followed by a huge covering tackle by Connor Denton when another RBW attack looked to bring their opening try. RBW did manage to create another overlap, which was converted to give them a 7-5 half-time lead.The second half saw the game played in a similar fashion, but with RBW having the advantage of the wind at their backs. Shelford had to step up their defensive effort to prevent RBW putting through as many through kicks as possible, which is exactly what they did. RBW started to look a little hesitant when being put under pressure, and Calum Shaw was unlucky not score an interception try, but was pulled back for an earlier infringement. A kick through by RBW was fielded by Fraser Brooks, whose quick thinking then saw a gap in the RBW defence. A well judged pass by Fraser then put the backs into space on the right against a stretched defence. The ball was quickly transferred to Harri Beasley who did a ‘Nick Webb’ to score his first try for Shelford in the corner, 12-5 to Shelford. What a great try that was!! The forwards continued to work tirelessly, with Cormac Starling & Ben Foster particularly outstanding, and from a number of pick & drives Connor finally found his way through a tiring RBW defence to put Shelford out of sight at 15-7. RBW responded at the death with a try in the corner, against an equally tiring Shelford team, with a missed conversion signalling the end of a great game at 15-12. This was a great team effort against a very talented RBW team, and Shelford (minus a good number of regulars) can be mightily proud of their performance today, especially when considering we were also playing ‘alien’ rules of 12-a-side instead of our usual 15. Well done boys. Shelford Under 13’s 50 RBW Heidelberg 30 Congratulations to all the boys who braved the winter weather and the chocolate bunny hangovers to play in the game against the experienced Heidelberg U13 side on Easter Monday. On Sunday the same Heidelberg XV played a match against a Cambridgeshire Regional Development side and played well to record a victory. Mr Dunnett and I gave this message loudly to the Shelford players on Monday morning and made it very clear that our defence would need to be rock solid if we were to stand any chance. Our boys had to adapt to the German rules and did so willingly. From the whistle the Germans were very quickly into our half with forceful and direct running and despite the warnings our defence creaked and Heidelberg scored first. The response from the boys was admirable as there followed a tremendous period of play from Shelford where quick thinking, concentration, excellent support play and solid defence led to the scoring of four unanswered team tries in quick succession (Impey, Jones, Eggleton, Darling). Heidelberg, to their credit, stuck at their task and pulled a score back before half time as Shelford chopped and changed the side to give all present a decent run out. It turned round at 20:10 to Shelford. Millar and Jones exchanged tries with our visitors at the start of the second half with Will Jones showing tremendous power and finishing. Millar, the Captain on the day then took advantage of a tiring defence and ran in a couple more tries but not before good possession and running through the phases provided the gaps for him to exploit. Knowles and Jones both took their chances well as the game opened up into an entertaining festival of running rugby to end the scoring 50:30 to Shelford. We look forward to the return fixture. Despite the constant swapping in of players the whole squad were a great credit to themselves. The brave tackling and excellent support play provided a platform for an excellent team performance. Thanks to Mr Doughnut who marshalled the players on and off the pitch and ensured that all the 'host' boys had a decent amount of time on the pitch. Once again many thanks to all those families who hosted boys or coaches this weekend - heroic deeds surpassing even the brave tackling of our boys! |
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