U11s Barnet Festival match report

We turned up at 9:15am to discover that our first game was not until 11:00am and that the promised sunshine was actually a day of wind and showers.

We took a squad of 20 and all boys were able to get a decent amount of time on the pitch during the four games.

Our first game was against Cheshunt. We went 7-0 down early on (I'm not convinced the boys realised which set of cones was the try line!) but the game was fairly even thereafter, finishing 7-0 to Cheshunt.

Our next game was against Welwyn (who have been Hertfordshire County champions for each of the past four seasons and beat Rosslyn Park in the Etihad U10 final last year). We lost by three tries to none, but what was really disappointing was the lack of effort put in by our boys and the poor work rate at the rucks and mauls. Stern words were had afterwards!

Our third game against Chess Valley saw much greater effort and a marked improvement. We won 17-0 with tries from Joseph Griso Dryer, Willam Eglen and Dan Shaw. Joseph Ball and Emmett missed their attempts at conversions, but Dan managed to convert his own try so takes the honour of kicking the first successful conversion for the team.

Our last game was against the hosts, Barnet. We went ahead 12-0 with two tries from Jonah Lowenstein, with Dan converting one of them. Barnet pulled a try back from a driving maul, with the game finishing 12-5.

The final table was: 1st Welwyn (W4, L0); 2nd Cheshunt (W3, L1); 3rd Finchley (W2, L2); 4th equal Barnet and Chess Valley (D1, L3).

So overall a slow start but improvement in the last two games - perhaps not surprising given we've only had three training sessions since last season. We certainly have a long list of things to work on!