The Tackling Tens were tremendous this weekend at the Westcliff Tournament, winning 3 from 4 games despite missing some players through illness and twice having to play back to back matches against fresh opposition.

The tackling of the team has been improving all season and this was another step up as a team. Individually Gerhardt, William C and William M deserve special mention for their commitment, power and number of tackles made.

It was also great to have Leo back after missing a few weeks and making some strong runs with the ball.

Players of the tournament this week were Gerhardt for his awesome defensive work and Henry for some excellent running and tries.

Well done all!

Matt, Jim, Alex and Jamie

U15’s

Away game today, as in sports sometimes things don’t go how you would like them to, we needed to win with a bonus point but unfortunately fell short by a try we did not turn up today had a few spells were we could of made it count but today was not our day,
Chass were the better team on the day and ground out the result slow to start slow to get going suffed injury one before the game and one 5 minutes into the game did not help have to move players out of position, games like this one is about digging deep and turning up but not this time, with this we can no longer win the league losing the game by 2 points
Away team giving man of the match to Sid
Epping man of the match Ewan

New players welcome please come Wednesday 6-7

U16’s

We took the U16’s to Hemel Hempstead Camelots for a really worthwhile friendly with the hosts leading for most of the game and a Ben Thomas full stretch dive for the line near the end gave us the victory.

The first half scoring went 7-0, we returned fire 7-7, 14-7, 14-12, 21-12, 21-17 HT.

The analysis of the first half was that we clearly had plenty of attacking threat but were lacking energy in defence, not doing enough to pressurise oppositions play nor genuinely competing to win at the break downs. It’s pleasing to write that in the second half there was an improvement in these aspects especially in terms of jackals plus turned over rucks and that coupled with good fitness levels to keep playing until the end earned us this victory.

Scoring in the second half was 26-17, 26-22, 26-29.

As we have been practising recently, passes between forwards gave us plenty more line breaks than we would otherwise of got and praise for the all the boys making these work and trying new skills.

Four players sustained what are all hoped to be minor injuries, so as to keep the strength of squad for our upcoming game under lights v Upminster this coming Friday 7:30 ko.

Opposition selected Reub Obeney as MoM for his leadership, tough tackling and workrate. Reub cleared the post game mars bar double quick too as he has had plenty of practise this season!

Other players that deserve a mention this week include Jonah Harris who was our insurance policy covering mid-field and made lots of tackles from 9; Harvey Cooney who ran hard, made important tackles and worked hard for the team; Xavier Alexander who tackled everything and Spencer Dixon-Heptinstall for his contributions from 8 - especially his line breaks and tackling.

More work on our game this week in training, all available please make every effort to attend as many of the planned sessions as possible to help us to finish the season strong and tour!

Friday 21st March 7:30pm ko Upminster.

Shout out to Harry Stockhill for his efforts representing Essex in a national competition this week where he was the 2nd Essex runner home and ranked 22nd overall out of 325 county standard athletes. Great work and well done Harry!

Always happy to receive new players, if anyone reading this knows any year 11 boys that would excel at rugby please direct them our way.