South Woodham Ferrers vs. Rochford U11s

I always enjoy watching Woodham and Rochford play a match, it’s always an evenly matched affair and today didn’t disappoint. Our boys were all up for the game especially Stefan, who seemed to be really ready to bring the match to the opposition today.

We were quickly in to the first scrum, which is always a strong point of Woodham as they have the formidable Emily. Well let’s be kind and say that the Rochford scrum was under pressure all match, but this didn’t deter
scrum half, Matt Fitz-Patrick from letting his opposite number know, he wasn’t going to have an easy day behind the scrum. It was impressive the amount of times he caught him napping, which meant that Woodham couldn’t really capitalise on their dominance in the scrum.

Although our scrum struggled the forwards in particular were playing a lot quicker today and competing in the ruck. Owen Jones stopped a forward in his tracks, as he tried to drill his way through our pack. Tom Finch and Lewis Jones were also trying to compete for the ball in the break down. We were soaking up a lot of pressure, when a knock-on from a Woodham player loosened up the ball; Michael picked it up and scored after running half the length of the pitch really close, actually too close, to the touch line. Tom Child went on to convert the try to give us a well fought lead.

The line out was functioning well, which was just as well, because we were pinned down on our own try line on a few occasions. One lineout which we won, almost saw Harry Gibson over for another try, after our boys got the ball out to him on the wing. Unfortunately, he was stopped just short of the line.

Into the second half and Woodham continued their strong play which finally saw them level up the score. To be fair they deserved the try after moving the ball around effortlessly. However, we were there still competing. Both sides were starting to get a little too aggressive with each other, so when the final whistle went it was probably for the best and the right end result. Make no mistake, Woodham looked a quality side and Rochford had to play well to manage the draw.