BS at Tring Tournament

Report

A very enjoyable round-robin fixture at Tring against teams from OAs, Welwyn and Tring.
Firstly it seems that my attempts to put the change of venue on Teamer didn’t work so as a result most parents ended up at the wrong venue – my apologies.
Anyway, all 13 boys managed to make it despite that. Our first game was against old rivals OAs and we made a bit of a slow start, allowing OAs to go a try up. The second half was a lot better and we dominated the game, a quickly taken penalty try by Thomas P being scant reward for our dominance.

In the second game we again, had a poor first half against Welwyn, losing too much ball in contact and not making enough tackles. To add to our woes, the referee got his lines mixed up and disallowed a perfectly good try (which he did acknowledge). A good run from Ben culminated in a try for Ciaran to match the try Welwyn scored in the first half, meaning we went into half-time level but frustrated. The second half couldn’t have been better. Strong scrummaging, good ball out to the backs, some great rucking and the best try so far this season – Noe, taking a high ball at pace and running in a fantastic try from Full Back. John added a typically rumbustious try to round -off a good 15-5 win despite the referee disallowing yet another try by mixing up his lines !
Our final game against Tring was the ultimate game of 2 halves. In the first half we were absent at the breakdown, throwing aimless passes, missing tackles and losing every contact. We went into half-time 15-0 down and it is of enormous credit to the boys that they made such a brave comeback in the second half, scoring 2 unanswered tries through Noe and Joe and coming very close to levelling the match against a strong Tring side.

A very enjoyable day’s rugby with some real highlights being the scrum, some lovely individual runs and, particularly at the end, one or two proper tackles. It is still early in the season but the tackling needs real improvement for all the boys. We also need to work on fitness levels – it was very apparent in the last game that rucking, until then one of our strengths, was absent because a number of the boys were not arriving at the breakdown in time.

All in all – lots of positives, we have a number of new boys who are fitting in really well. Some of the older hands are getting used to new positions and over time they will start playing as a team rather than a group of individuals.

Well done boys and thanks parents for your support

Table
Tring P3 W3 D0 – 9 points
BS P3 W1 D1 – 4 points
Welwyn P3 W1 D0 – 3 points
OA P3 W0 D1 – 1 point

Martin