Game 1 Discovery Bay win 7-2 -
All girls turned up early or on time to allow us a long warm-up and ensured we were “rugby ready” come kick-off time and we were able to “do an England” against Discovery Bay who at full time must have been wondering what hit them (a bit like the All Blacks).

Special mention to Zanzi for turning up to be head cheerleader even though she was as “keen as mustard to play” with her arm in a cast protecting a hairline fracture a few days earlier.

All the girls played well from the outset and we played some great team Rugby.

We had our defensive and attacking backlines “reset” in broken play and put pressure on the opposition most of the time.
Try scorers: Ella, Saffron (a text book Second-row pick-up from the base of the ruck with space wide open and a short gallop in for her first try) Chloe, Isabelle (2), Grace (2)
Parent player of the Match: We did not award a player of the match this time. (I did not get around to organising that with all the other things going on.)

Work-ons for the match is that we lost too many rucks and turned-over ball too easily. Our body positions were too high and we lacked supporting numbers.

Game 2 Valley Fort win 5-3
A closer game with Valley having some speed on the left wing that we need to negate by empowering the players to understand and action a “sweep” defence. Our Rucking improved markedly in this second game.

Try scorers: Chloe, Grace (4)
Parent player of the Match: Grace Eathorne.

Work-ons. Sweep defence for the backs. We could have scored many more points with “just one more pass”! Learn to offload in contact and to develop passing and catching skills into space. (Draw and pass.)

Game 3 Football Club Draw 2-2
This is the game that we can learn the most from. Football Club drew with every other team today (yes we beat every other team and it does not make sense that they nearly beat us).I offer two reasons why they nearly beat us. All girls who were not injured played every single minute of the game so the fatigue set in and our level dropped. Thank-yous to Willow who subbed for us when Ella went down in game 2 and came back with Thiya for game three when Injuries to Charlotte (ankle) and Emilia (abrasion). Special mention to Thiya who pulled off a cracking “sweeping” defensive and try saving tackle (tackle of the day for me).“White-line fever” is when a team loses its shape and structure after scoring too many easy tries

Try scorers: Ahlia, Grace
Parent player of the Match: Isabelle

Ross Eathorne - Head Coach U-12