Datchworth Under 11’s take Runners Up at North Herts Festival at Letchworth!

Yet another cracking day for rugby welcomed us at Letchworth RFC for the 2014/2015 North Herts Rugby Festival. As Under 10’s last year we took the title beating Tabard, Hitchin and Letchworth and drawing with Royston on the way.

This year however, playing for the cup against Letchworth, Hitchin A’s and OA’s A’s (at least their A’s for the festival), it was not to go all our way, but we had 3 very good games.

First up at 10am we were against the hosts Letchworth. Deciding beforehand to play mixed teams for the first 2 games to give everyone a run out, before fielding the strongest team against the OA’s, we put on a good display to take the win 10-5. William Field’s tackle count was up to his usual very high standards, putting in a huge effort, but we also saw a great tackle from Oliver Dean to stop a Letchworth charge, so well done Ollie. Some good defensive kicking to clear our lines came from Finlay & Spencer Bayford relieving the attacking pressure on several occasions. Tries came from a fast break from William Field, and another great charge from William Bacon brought the second.

With our tails up, we later lined up against Hitchin A’s for our second match of the morning. This was a different atmosphere with the Hitchin lads seemingly up for a niggly game. High tackles were rightly penalised but there seemed to be a propensity for Hitchin to take the players near the shoulder line, as well as infringing in the breakdown, something they were consistently pulled up on. Nevertheless some great ripping and turnover ball from Joshua Staddon in particular led to him getting a well deserved try (as well as Player of the Week from the Parents), and we also saw some good counter rucking from Thomas Beechey. Thomas Paine was tackling like a demon too with a great cover tackle to stop another strong Hitchin run, and Isaac Byrne’s hands never let him down, taking some very difficult balls in his stride! However, after a hard fought match that all the boys knew they had been involved in, the end result was 10-5 to Hitchin.

Final game of the morning was against the OA’s. Remembering these guys have around 850 kids in their minis section, and 98 in the Under 11’s to choose from, we knew this was going to be a tough match, and so it proved. We did manage to see some nice passages of play from the boys, including a lovely offload in the tackle from William Bacon to Joshua Staddon, but ultimately OA’s had more of the ball and ran 4 tries past us to our 1 from William Field, making the final score 20-5 to OA’s.

Once all the match scores had been totted up, much to our surprise it turned out that Hitchin and OA’s actually shared the Cup in joint first place, which placed Datchworth as Runners-Up (with Letchworth some 10 tries down behind us), meaning medals for the boys’ efforts and another trophy for the clubhouse! A great morning out for the boys, and a welcome surprise at the end!