Under 11’s match report - Sunday 20th February 2011

We travelled this week to Oakham, arriving on a cold day, with just the bare minimum 12 players, with the half term holiday affecting our squad numbers, but still gave two good heart warming displays.

1st match - Oakham B 5 Elks 30
Oakham played their weaker side against us, but given Elliott Harvey wasn’t feeling too well, we played most of the match with eleven players, so a stirring performance given the odds. Our tackling throughout the day was very impressive, and we are beginning to gel as a team, keeping our shape, Chris Goodall and then Jack (Ed) Mason Barton scoring our second to give us an early 10-0 lead. Oakham though got back in it with a very good try to take the scores to 10-5. However Chris was having some decent runs and finding Oakham’s defensive gaps to get his second try, this started an avalanche with George Beardsley, Sam Hines and Charlie Clarke going over impressively to give us a 30-5 victory. Good forward play was the springboard for this game, so well done to Liam Soar, Fraser Douglas, George, Sam and Warwick Waudby who’s switch to hooker was a bonus for us as we started to win the ball in our scrums and some even striking against the head. A mention should also be made for our backs, whose tackling recently has become much improved, so hats off to the ever impressive Aneurin Lings, Connor Jowitt, “Ed”, Jack Marshall (another good game at full back), Chris and Charlie.

2nd match – Melton 15 Elks 0
Melton were a good side, and our thanks must go to Elliott Harvey, who seeing what we were up against came on during the match to make the numbers up, and try and help his mates out, although he was not very well at all! We let in one try to go 5-0 down at half time, and errors by a couple of our players led to Melton scoring another two tries after the break. But there were positives to take out of this game, again Warwick performing well as hooker, winning us most of the ball in the scrums. Melton however were pushing us well in the scrums and winning the ball back – something we need to work on in the future, given our forwards should be a match for anyone, especially when sheer strength is needed, just a matter of timing and fine tuning for us to be very successful in this area. Again our defensive play on or near our try line is very good, just one or two silly mistakes to be ironed out, but a good run out on the day all the same.
Man of the match(es) was awarded to Aneurin Lings, a dynamo throughout the day and whose tackling is getting just better and better as the season progresses.

Squad present: Aneurin Lings, Charlie Clarke, Chris Goodall, Connor Jowitt, Elliott Harvey, Fraser Douglas, George Beardsley, Jack Marshall, Jack (“Ed”) Mason Barton, Liam Soar, Sam Hines, Warwick Waudby.

Kevin Hines