Undefeated at Hampshire Festival

Sunday 23rd saw the last round of what was previously the Hampshire Tournament involving U7's and U8's.

After a directive from Hants RFU, the format had been changed to the RFU's new non-competitive Festival set up, where there are no play-offs or finals. Instead of play-offs Stuart, the organiser, had rejigged the schedules so we played more round robin matches to still give us a full day of rugby.

And what a day of rugby!!

Our first match brought our first victory! No tries conceded, and the 7-tag turnover enforced three times!

Second up, our neighbours Fordingbridge. A closer match but we edged it and it still took them until the second half to score against us - with credit from their coach for their improved play being a result of training with us!!

And so it continued, with win after win. One coach sat his players down to watch us play Andover with a 'let's see what we an learn' comment. Against Alresford, we played so well the ref asked all the spectators for a round of applause after the match.

Our last match was against New Milton. We're always tightly matched against NM, with results often coming down to who has the ball during the last play of the match. Despite our best defence and constant tagging, NM managed to sneak a try as the clock turned red to level the scores. Our only draw of the day, but we were still undefeated. More compliments from our ref too, saying it was the best game of rugby he'd seen all day - I'd say worthy of a final :)

So six wins and one draw, a pretty fine day out! But ignoring the results, I was incredibly proud of our players; they played their hearts out as a team, supporting each other, helping each other out and being great mates, on and off the pitch. They were all fantastic examples of modern youth rugby and fine ambassadors for E&R.

Huge congrats to; Arthur, Harry W, Aidan, Samuel, Freddie, Ben, Matthew, Will, Joe and Joey.

And huge thanks to their parents for driving all that way, being so supportive and keeping them topped up with food and drink.

Well done all!!