Finchley U11s win Grasshoppers Festival

The tournament saw 12 teams split into 3 pools, with the 3 pool winners plus the best pool runner up going through to the semi finals. We were placed in pool A alongside Bank of England A, Staines and Chobham.

We took 21 players to the Festival and, to ensure everybody played an equal part, we essentially had a different team playing each half of the match(although Eoin and William played all of the full games).

Our first game against Staines saw us score a try in each half (Dan and Eoin) to win 2-0. We then faced Bank of England A, who had beaten Chobham 2-0 in their first game. We conceded an early try (which proved to be the only try we conceded all day), but despite a lot of pressure on the BOE line we were unable to score and so lost 1-0. To have any prospect of progressing beyond the pool stages we had to win our last game against Chobham. The first half performance was great, seeing firstly Joseph Griso Dryer and then Cameron score on the stroke of half time. We didn't manage to score in the second half so ran out winners 2-0.

We had come second in our pool, behind Bank of England A, and so had an agonising wait to see whether we'd progress as best runner up. We had the same number of points, tries scored and conceded as London Welsh but under the tournament rules we progressed as we'd won 2 games whilst they had won 1 and drawn 2.

We were through into the semi-finals and drew the hosts, Grasshoppers, who had topped pool B with 2 wins and a draw. They were an extremely large team (with their largest players in the backs), however an extremely strong first half performance saw us take a 3-0 lead into the break thanks to 2 tries to Joseph Griso Dryer and a try from Dan. We extended the lead to 4-0 in the second half following a try by William to see us progress into the final where we'd play Teddington.

Teddington had cruised through their 3 pool matches scoring 17 tries and conceding none, and then beating Bank of England A (who had topped our pool) in the other semi final. Therefore we knew we were in for a very difficult game. We'd seen Teddington play Ruislip earlier and noticed the speed of their backs, especially the full back. We therefore needed to dominate the forward contest to keep the ball and, when we didn't have it, shut down their backs extremely quickly. The first half was very tight with not much between the teams. We had managed to contain the Teddington backs, although we were making the error of kicking the ball to their full back when we weren't near our try line rather than just keeping it.

The second half saw us pressurise the Teddington line with Archie and Jonathan going close before Eoin finally managed to cross the line. Teddington came back with great determination and it was only some strong defensive tackling that kept them out (including a match winning tackle by Eoin in the corner). The final whistle was greeted by celebration from the players and parents after what had been a long, damp day.

Overall, the boys played well throughout the day, particularly in their defensive work where they only conceded 1 try in 5 games despite coming under great pressure. All 20 boys played an important part in the tournament victory and should be proud of their efforts.

The Finchley U11 team was: Danny AMMIRATO, Joseph BALL, Jonathan CASE, Archie DAVIDSON, Luke EVANS, Noah GETZ BRZEZINSKI, Joseph GRISO DRYER, Joseph JOHNSON, Sam L'HUILLIER JANSA, Eoin MURPHY, Niall SEXTON, Dan SHAW, Cameron YOUSEFIAN, William EGLEN, Stephen McCARTHY, Rory MCKINNON, Charlie SMITH, Luca HORBACKI, Liam O'FLYNN, James PERKS