Elks U11's draw one and win one in triangular fixture.

1st match – Bakewell 21 Elks 21; 2nd match – Elks 21 Mellish 7
Squad present: Aneurin Lings, Ben Clements, Charlie Clarke, Chris Goodall, Connor Jowitt, Elliott Harvey, Ellis Thomas, Fraser Douglas, George Beardsley, Jack Marshall, Jack (“Ed”) Mason Barton, James Semken, Michael Hayes, Sam Hines, Warwick Waudby.
We welcomed back Bakewell to the Stute again – with their pitch unfortunately unplayable, they travelled again to meet up with us and Mellish to form an interesting mini triangular tournament. After Bakewell beat Mellish, they turned straight round and played against us – Elks again went behind against Bakewell 7-0, but we turned the game around convincingly, putting some good rugby together and operating as a team – George Beardsley going over for yet another try, with a conversion by Jack Marshall drawing us level in the game. Bakewell’s mazy little winger again was doing most of the damage again, but our tackling is improving game by game, all the squad to a man making their tackles count, and for once we were in ascendency against a good running side which Bakewell undoubtedly are. Warwick Waudby was getting involved in everything and went over for a try after one of his trademark runs, Jack duly converted and we were in the lead for the first time 14-7 – Bakewell don’t lie down though and levelled the scores. Chris Goodall then went on a strong run down the wing and went over to restore our lead 21-14 – surely we were going to win this one! With the referee calling “final play” Elks decided to strike out for more – and got caught out by their outstanding winger, who weaved his way through our team to score a try, which was converted to make the final score 21 each – phew what a fantastic match – both sides entertaining both sets of supporters and coaches alike.
2nd match - Mellish gave us a different game all together, they had some very strong forwards and it became a battle of the “big men”. Elliott Harvey was instrumental in this one with his improved driving and along with the rest of the forwards defending doggedly as Mellish tried to press on using their formidable strength in the forwards. We never though looked like losing this one and George and Warwick were again well to the front running in tries, converted by Charlie Clarke – this put us 14-0 up and although Mellish came back to put 7 points on the board, we never looked in too much trouble. Elliott picked up a loose ball in the middle of the pitch and run through to score a try, crashing down in the corner – this was converted and put us up 21-7. Although there was no further scoring Mellish began to exert pressure through their forwards and were camped for the last 5 minutes virtually on our try line, but our defence held strong and managed to drive them back. Cracking tackles by all of our backs helped the cause though and a shuddering tackle by Connor Jowitt (who’s only been with us for a few weeks) made sure Mellish were held at bay.
Overall an impressive day’s Rugby, Elks under 11’s are beginning to learn to work together as a team, hold their shape, and are beginning to ruck and maul convincingly. Man of the match was awarded to Elliott Harvey for his outstanding forward play throughout both matches.

The previous week we played against Paviors in a series of 10 min matches to give all their squad a game, we played well enough and were unlucky on the day to just miss out by a try or two over the whole morning – mention though must be made of Ellis Thomas who was voted Man of the match for his tenacious tackling - one particular moment will stay with us for quite a while and made the whole day worthwhile – one of the Paviours players was over the goal line, just going down to score a perfunctory try, when from nowhere Ellis flew in timing his tackle to perfection, knocking the ball out of the attackers hands, what a fantastic saving defensive tackle – we will struggle to see a better tackle all season!

Kevin Hines