Under 11s v Harpenden Rugby Club - Away Friendly on 21 Nov 2010

UNDER 11s versus Harpenden 

MATCH REPORT 21-11-2010. Hitchin U11's V Harpenden U11's. 

Game 1). ? ?5-5. (Against a mixed Harpenden 1st and 2nd team). 

Game 2). ? ?0-20.(Against a full 1st team for Harpenden). 

Well we arrived at a muddy Harpenden with 14 boys to play them for the 2nd time this season. In our previous encounter we were on the backfoot all day, so we knew we were in for a hard couple of matches, but were confident we could give them a good game and as the boys said in not such great english..."we're WELL up for it" ! 

We had a front row of Ben L. Daniel and Liam, with the always formidible Harry D and Sam McC starting in the second row. 

This was the first noticeable difference, as our scrum not only held its own, but dominated, pushing them back on our own feed as well as theirs. 

Harry D was as always, awesome in the loose and combined well with Sam McC at ruck time to the coaches delight, as they were clearing out well with Harpenden bodies being dragged out and hurled to the ground with gay abandon. 

Ben and Liam wre solid at srum time and Daniel had his best game in a Hitchin shirt, making some good tackles and taking the ball into contact well to ensure his team were always going forward. 

When George came on for Daniel in the 13th minute, Sam moved to hooker and George packed down in the second row; He was a revelation and put in some seriously big try saving tackles, the coaches can hardly believe he is new to rugby and he has a promising future with the Hitchin team. 

In the backs, Elliot turned a corner in that he was very quick to the breakdown and secured ball quickly and fired out some beautiful passes off both hands to his waiting backline, so well done to him and to his backs coach Eric and Marks work with him on Friday night. 

Alfie was an inspiration at 10,in both attack and defense, he tackled anyone who was in front of him, (I thought he might even start tackling his own team mates he was so fired up), He constantly put pressure on Harpenden, so much so, that even when they wre in possession,they wre going backwards. 

After seven minutes, this pressure paid off, Harry D smashed a Harpenden player in the tackle who lost the ball, Elliot was on hand as the Hitchin forwards arrived on mass and drove over, Elliot thenpassed a ball out to Alfie who set off on one of his runs, Harry L. and Alfie had been marshelling the Hitchin backline well all day and the ball flew out to Harry L. who offloaded well to Matthew who passed fantastically in contact out to Oliver and out to Alex on the wing; Alex with his usual smiling face happily took the ball and went for the line, with Harry D, Harry L,Sam Alfie and Oliver piling on top of him,Alex emerged grinning from ear to ear from the bottom of the pile of bodies...TRY AWARDED. ?Much deserved by Hitchin who had dominated and a nice mix of forwards and backs doing their jobs and working well together. 

So successful were Hitchin, that as predicted by coach Mark at half time, Harpenden were forced into a different game plan for the second half and started to throw the ballout wide to their backs. It was only when they got to put their star 1st team centre on as a substitute and Hitchin had to switch players around due to injuries that they finally managed to score and even that came from the ref missing a VERY obvious knock on by Harpenden and choosing to ignore it! 

So the match ended in a 5-5 draw, but with Hitchin clearly in the ascendancy. 

For the second match, Harpenden decided to field their strongest 1st team! and despite the fact that Liam felt unwell and Harry D was injured so both were out,( although both guys did make the effort for the team and came on later), a reshuffled team only went down 20-0. 

The versatile Harry L deserves a special mention for switching from centre to loosehead prop and then totally dominating their strongest forward at scrumtime. 

Oliver showed that despite a recent broken arm, he can tackle the biggest guy put in front of him, without fear time and time again and was successful in bringing down their afore mentioned star centre when asked by yours truly to do so every time. 

As usual, our token frenchman, upheld the honour of France by putting his body on the line and making tackle after tackle, small in stature, BIG in heart. Tyler, who didn't get much of the ball in the second match, showed us glimpses of his pace and Matthew, who was solid in defence, opened up the opposition on several occasions, but was unable to get that final pass away. 

Overall, this was a huge step forward for the boys, who against one of the strongest teams in the county, proved that they can compete and win. Lineout aside,our forwards dominated and our backs showed pace and good hands in the pass. The defensive line was excellent and communication was good by both forwards and backs. 

Well done Hitchin.