Colts

Eastern Counties U19 Cup Semi-Final

North Walsham 3 Shelford 23

Shelford’s Colts got off to a good start in their EC semi at North Walsham. Applying the pressure right from the kick off and forcing Walsham to kick into touch at the half way line. From the line out, Shelford managed quick ball and George Perry broke though the Walsham defence and made the hard yards before off loading to Harry Robbins who muscled his way over the try line to score near the posts. Ben Seymour converted. From the kick off Shelford shot themselves in the foot, failing to deal with the restart and were punished by giving away a penalty in front of the posts which was easily slotted over. But from the restart, it was Shelford who once again asserted the pressure and took the game to Walsham. With Shelford’s much smaller pack taking the game to the bigger Walsham forwards and keeping them on the back foot, Walsham gave away several penalties, one of which Seymour converted from way out. Shelford started to punish Walsham, getting quick ball out to the backs and some good handling saw Jon Caller score in the corner. Just before the interval, Walsham under pressure, gave away a penalty out on the side line which was well slotted home by Seymour. The second half saw Shelford once again taking the game to North Walsham but some fine defence kept Shelford at bay. Until the 48th minute, when quick ball from a ruck saw the backs charge through the centre and off load to Caller who ran 20 yards though a crowd of players to score. This seemed to galvanize the Walsham forwards and they really took the game to Shelford  and encamped themselves on the Shelford line for the last 10 minutes of the game but some great defence saw them denied any further points. Shelford colts will play Colchester in the final and this will be a big ask of the Shelford team as Colchester are playing well at the moment. Don’t write us off just yet…watch this space…

Shelford Under 17’s (Colts B’s) 7 Cambridge Colts (Under 19’s) 29

Shelford 27 St Neots 0

The hosts played magnificent rugby in patches through this game – the score doesn’t reflect the superiority of the Shelford pack, typified by Ben Porch stealing every ball at the line out and Dom Rowley taking 8 strikes against the head in the scrum. The ball, once won, was then lost through an alarming series of knock ons, kicks ahead, forward passes and penalties. Man of the Match Pearce Staples wove his way through much of the Neots defence, creating much in terms of space and opportunity, however, the points didn’t pile up as perhaps they should have. Scores came from Ben Wierny, crashing over after Jonno Swain had beaten the 1^st up tackler; Jamie Hirst on a typical charge offloaded superbly to Tom Preston who side stepped the last man to make it easy for Wierny to convert. Shelford’s third came as Ryan Kenny rounded off a flowing passage of play, the fourth from Ben Cooper with his customary 4 tacklers hanging off him. The final try came as Porch won yet another Neots line out and despite Neots bringing down the subsequent maul illegally, the ball passed through six pairs of hands to Ian Morrison who scored out wide.

Under 14’s

Shelford 48 Bedford B 26

This was good run out for the boys, especially those with little experience of playing full games. It was also an opportunity to try out some different positions for some of the other squad members. With all the changes made to the starting personnel, Shelford were a little slow to get going and allowed Bedford to dominate the early exchanges. Some of our tackling at times was poor, and we were relying on too many of the ‘old stagers’ to put the hits in, and our usual aggression around the breakdown area was a little lacking. Bedford deservedly took the lead, and probably wish they hadn’t as Shelford really took the game away from Bedford even at this early stage. A number of quick bursts from depth by Alex Flynn saw him tear the Bedford defence to shreds with a first half hat-trick, plus a fine dummy by Sam Perry saw him go over too. Two conversions by Lewis Cracknell left us up at half-time at 24-7. With a host more changes in the second half, Shelford continued to dominate away from the contact areas, with Perry scoring another try out wide, 29-7. Shelford then introduced their new ‘centre’ to proceedings, and Connor Denton then did a mean impression of Alex Flynn to run through a hesitant defence by scoring under the posts, converted by Cracknell, 36-7. To Bedford’s great credit, they came back at Shelford hard, especially up front and deservedly scored a couple of well taken tries to bring the score back to 36-19. Any thoughts of a Bedford revival were soon put to bed, as a great score by the backs saw George Teeboon at full back finish off a move in the corner, for his first try for the club, 41-19. Denton scored another under the posts, converted by Joe Sherrington-Scales, 48-19. Bedford finished in the ascendancy by scoring with the last play of the game to bring the final score to 48-26. A good game’s rugby played in great spirit. Big thanks to Mr Dennington for refereeing with distinction, and not being overly hard on our boys!! A nice fixture to have for our ever growing squad, and one that we and Bedford are keen to see again next season.

Tours to Galway

Under 12's

Monivea 10 Shelford 55

The Under 12s departed for Ireland in good spirit. Unfortunately this was pretty much dampened by the Galway weather which led to the cancellation of our first game against Galwegians. We found the only dry spot of ground in Ireland for a training session which meant the team were well prepared for the visit to Monivea.

Right from the outset shelford got their fast rucking game going which left their Irish opponents chasing shadows. Shelford scored eleven tries in all, with the wingers grabbing five between them (three for Jack Miers and two for George Smith). Liam Calvey smashed his way over for two tries while the others were shared around the backs - one each for Sam Jones, Stephen Douglas, James Tilbury and Angus Finlayson.. The final score was 55-10 to Shelford.

Under 9’s/10’s

Shelford took a combined team of 12 players to Galway in Ireland. It was a great weekend, although very windy and wet on the Saturday so the pitches were in a sorry state so, unfortunately, our Saturday game was cancelled.

Shelford 9s/10s 20 Monivea 5