Thurrock Festival

Bishop’s Stortford U10’s fielded a competitive mixed team in the 31st running of the Thurrock Festival and they accredited themselves brilliantly.
There were individual performances of flair, power and great reading of the game to produce some flowing attacking rugby throughout the day….and let’s not forget some superb tackling, including a few try saving tackles – truly worthy of the Bishop’s Stortford rugby club shirt.
However, the talk between the coaches was of the application to the ruck and maul, producing turnovers by the plenty, and a magnificent passage of play mid-festival of 5-6 phases of attack, ruck over, attack again, winning the rucks to go over the try line from the halfway line….brilliant.
We had also asked the boys to take the ball into contact with the aim of never losing the ball to a rip and when in defence to go after the rip in the maul, the boys could see the benefit of this and again saw turnovers in defence and helped maintain our rucking game going forward, well done team!
There were some feisty encounters on the field today with some emotions running high, against some feisty opposition it has to be said, but the boys can be proud to wear the club shirt as they maintained focus and played in the spirit of the game. Some work to be done on getting into a better deep attacking line and running onto the ball at pace will see these players developing nicely.
Special mention to Jack Eley who broke through 2 tackles down the wing with a massive smile on his face. Great effort!
In summary some giant performances in a competitive pool, the standard of rugby played by the squad was high with all the boys playing their part against some literally giant teams…….
Match day squad:
Toby Sloan, Will Dommett, Max Sanderson, Sam Register, Max banks, Jack Eley, Will Stabb, Jack Pillinger, Jake Roberts, Alex Rickard, JP Dunphy, Luke Seddon

Report by Paul Dommett