Southport at Home

Today we welcomed Southport to Toc H for a last minute fixture for the under 9s. We started out in proper rugby weather and ended up in beautiful October sunshine for some thoroughly entertaining games. I’d like to thank Richard Massingham , Aidan Murphy and Andy Slim for helping us out from the sidelines - it’s much appreciated, and for the rest of you by registering on the website which makes our job a lot easier.

The squad was split into two teams playing against a very strong opposition. What we lost in terms of physical build was more than made up for by the enthusiasm shown by all of our players. Daniel had his usual wonderful game and won the man of the match for the games refereed by Tim.

In the initial game on the other pitch we started slowly in the first half, and were down by a few tries due to the strong running of our opponents. The second half was a different story with some fantastic running and tackling from all of our players. A special mention this week for Matthew, Sam Fordham and Finlay who haven’t been down to many training sessions, yet still threw themselves into the game with a real passion, and weren’t afraid to put themselves in front of much larger players from Southport. After the slow start the game was narrowly lost yet the way we came back showed a great spirit within the team. Thank you to captain Thomas for the way he threw himself into tackles bringing down lots of the Southport players and for some very strong running with the ball.

The second game started with a superb individual try from Ethan, but we were soon behind thanks to some slick passing by Southport. Once again Toc H came back into the game with a wonderful team try finished off by the ever improving and totally unflappable Lucas, but thanks to some great offloading by Charlie Murphy who has a storming game . The second half of this game saw a great set of tackles made by Oliver and some fleet footed running to avoid the defence. Finally to Jude - todays man of the match . Jude played so well today in both his running with the ball, where at times it seemed like he wasn’t going to be stopped, and with his determined tackling – well done Jude !

As always there are things that we need to work on in the coming weeks such as getting the players to stay away from touch more often. However , as coaches it makes both Tim and I really proud to see the way the children have taken to the new physical side of the game, and seem to really be enjoying themselves.