Rochford U10s vs. Burnham, 30th October 2011

As the team arrived it was great to see near enough the whole squad. This is great for Steve, Doug and Lee who can choose a team from everyone and have the options to change when necessary during the game. Steve was due to ref the game but was saved at the last moment by the arrival of Spud, much to Steve’s delight!!

Charlie was our captain for the first game and as he stood in the middle the team lined up behind him.

The game kicked off and what seems to be a bad tradition for us we started very slow. Before we had even really touched the ball Burnham had run in the opening try. We tried the ‘Numbers Ball’ from the restart and it work to a point until we gave away a penalty. Burnham took advantage of this and pretty much unchallenged due to far too many missed tackles run in a couple more tries. This at last sparked a bit of life into us and from a scrum Louis passed out to Frazer who ran well but then we gave away another penalty. Burnham applied more pressure and if not for some good defending from Dom they would have surely scored again. We had a line out and the call for ‘Rolo Ball’ went up.

Jamie was in the line out and took the ball well. Charlie and Haidyn bound on well and were guided by Louis until he fired the ball out to Dom who went on a good run until he was brought down. From the resulting ruck Burnham turned over the ball and run in another try unchallenged.
From the restart the boys tried the ‘Corridor Ball’. Frazer came running in calling for the ball but flew out from Louis and straight to Dom who again ran well, this time however managed to pass the ball off to Henry who with a little bits swivel hip action went over the Burnham try line for our first try. After the restart we turned the ball over and were really pilling on the pressure but somehow Burnham turned over the ball and sprinted up the field. Grace was our last line of defence and despite and great effort to stop them Burnham ran in another try.

The second half started much brighter for us and we applied some good pressure on the opposition, pinning them down in their half but again we managed to lose the ball and let them run up the field for a try. Once restarted we were awarded a penalty which Louis took quickly and made a good break up the line with only a last ditch tackle stopping him from scoring. Play went on fairly evenly until a pass from Rochford was well read by a Burnham player which he intercepted and burst through to score. There was some more good driving play from Ben and Charlie and it resulted in good down the line passing play. As the half drew to a close Burnham broke a number of tackles to finish off the game with a try.