EMU10s V Upminster & Thurrock

Eton Manor U10s put in an excellent performance on Sunday in the tri tournament at Upminster against the hosts and Thurrock. After a 3 nil defeat to Romford in our last fixture we had worked on rucking and our attacking lines, and it paid off.
The first game was against Upminster and as usual, we looked considerable smaller than the opposition, but our solid tackling game and rucking soon put us in the Upminster half. Johnny, Alfie, Alex and Ameer where very quick to the tackle area and were clearing away the opposition giving our back line good possession. The Upminster defence was commendable and they held out until Johnny stole a couple of quick balls in the tackle area and scored some great runaway tries. We won the first game 5:2. The second game against Upminster followed a similar pattern with our players staying on their feet in the tackle area and stealing lots of ball. Ameer seemed to be everywhere on the pitch making tackles one minute and popping up in a ruck or mauls the next. Upminster must have been sick of the sight of him by the final whistle when we won 4:2.

Thurrock next, which was a tight game and was characterised by some solid tackling from everyone. Gus, Thomas, Liam put in some try saving tackles close to our line. As ever Luca and Rory stopped the bigger runners coming through the middle, and when Dev made one of his trademark runs down the wing we were up by one try. A couple breaks through the middle from Archie and one of Alfie’s steaming runs put us in Thurrock’s half and we scored from this possession to win 2:1.

We decided to play another 3 games and had a much tighter game against Upminster this time which saw one of the moves of the day when Oliver showing fantastic pace down the wing and with one man to beat, put in a lovely pop pass to Johnny for a run in try. We were up 2:1 at the end of the match when Oliver made another run down the wing and was tackled but managed to pass the ball back in play to keep it alive. In doing so he went down awkwardly and injured his neck so we halted play for the day there while Oliver was treated. I’m glad to say he’s OK and we look forward to seeing more great performances from him soon.

These games were a real team effort both in terms of solid defence under a lot of pressure, and good skills in the contact area. The organisation around the breakdown came together really well and it’s nice to see real progress being made in those areas of the game which ultimately won us 4 out of 4 games. The Upminster and Thurrock players deserve a lot of credit for making the games very tough and enjoyable and for never giving up. All the games were played in good spirit, and we look forward to playing both these teams again. Well done everyone.