EM U10s / Wanstead / Chingford tri

The EM U10s put together a solid performance in a tri fixture against Wanstead and Chingford on Sunday. As our pitches were out of action the whole squad hiked up the road to Wanstead. We put out two teams captained by Oilver and Orla.

Oliver’s team
The first match against Wanstead was a bruising encounter. Wanstead used their big runners to make ground through the middle but our tackling was immense. Not only were the individual 1 on 1 tackles good, but we kept our shape in defense and pushed up with players like Andre putting the Wanstead under a lot of pressure and with good quick rucking from Frank, Jack, Alex and Alfie we managed to get a lot of turnover ball from opposition mistakes. It was an evenly matched game and was still 0:0 at half time. The second half continued in the same way, but eventually Wanstead managed to break the deadlock with a try, however in the last play of the game we managed to break from the base of a ruck and pass to Johnny who raced down the right touch line to score in the corner and draw the match

Against Chingford the game was dominated by an aggressive EM defense. Both teams were evenly matched but we managed to get the upper hand with Matthew carrying the ball through the middle and linking up with Oliver on the wing who made some good aggressive runs along the touchline. Our pressure saw us score two tries with Chingford managing to get one back, but by this time we were playing with confidence. Even with Chingford camped on out line after about 4 phases of play they did not look like breaching the EM defensive line and we managed to turn the ball over and score at the end of play to win 3:1.

This was a much improved team effort against two sides who had mange to beat us quite convincingly in the past. We left a couple of tries on the pitch by not making that last pass to the supporting player but this will come.

Orla’s Team
Orla’s team lost the first game to Chingford. As usual they played well. The tackling was improved but Manor coughed the ball up a couple of times for Chingford breakaway tries. Thady got the only try of the game for Manor with his strong direct running. The second game saw Manor come up against an incredibly strong Wanstead team. Wanstead scored a couple of good tries, one of which was exceptional but again most came from the giving or passing the ball away when tackled rather than holding onto it. Thady did well, Rowan played with some real aggression and was getting stuck in. Orla was everywhere and was lucky not score herself. She was smashed (pushed) into touch and I thought she was going to cry but she held it together and charged back onto pitch. Henry was a dynamo and Harry made a couple of cracking hits also. When the pitches dry out I am sure Harrison will be scoring for fun. Ami also played her best game and almost scored herself. The cold weather and heavy pitches made it tough for all teams but the more they played the better they got.