U8 MINI RUGBY REPORTS

Etihad Cup, January 20th - Report by Chris Cullen

The first competitive event of the New Year was an Etihad Cup group phase at The Twickenham Stoop, home to the Harlequins. After a brief warm-up on the training pitch we were ushered into the stadium for our first match against Battersea Ironsides.

After the first 5 minutes it began to look like Cobham had used up all of their good work on the training ground; there were lots of handling errors, no shape and generally poor play. Luckily the Ironsides seemed to be suffering from the same nerves and Cobham were able hold on for a 4-3 win - partly thanks to Battersea dropping the ball right on the try-line.

The second match, against another new opponent; the Egham Knights, saw Cobham play much better. The number of handling errors reduced dramatically, the passing was more fluid and the support play was excellent. The only minor criticism was that the tagging was a little ragged. The final score of 4-2 didn't really reflect the balance of the play.

The third and last match of the day was effectively a 'final' as our opponents, Old Alleynians, had also won their two opening matches. The sides were very evenly matched and traded tries twice as they both struggled to get the upper hand. Cobham's tagging improved notably and they twice achieved a turnover through getting seven tags.

It was a tense finish. The scores were level, the referee had called 'last play'. A draw would have meant a try count back which would have been close. Happily Cobham were in possession and made good use of the ball through some direct running and good handling, scored the wining try.

Winning the match and finishing top of the group ensures that we will be invited back to contest a semi final in March. After an initial rustiness Cobham played very well and showed great team spirit to come through in such a strong field. Everyone played well and congratulations to Hugo who did superbly on his first outing for the club.

Team: CONOR CULLEN, DANIEL CUTHBERT, EVAN DAVIES, CALLUM DREWETT, ETHAN KITTO, WILL KOROLKIEWICZ, JACK PALLISER, JACK RICKERD, JAKE ROBINSON, HUGO COUGHLAN