Sunday 27^th November 2011

Herts and Middlesex Division 6

Hammers 0 Bedford 47

The under 13’s played their first home match on the season on a new pitch at South Park, on a bright sunny day against Bedford RFC.

Bedford had a well organised team that took the game to the Hammers in the opening minutes nearly scoring from the kick off. It could be seen from the sidelines that this was going to be a difficult match for the home side from the high standard of play from the Bedford side. Good runs by Raphael Flackler and Alexandre Coyard and stern tackling by Gustave Vilsboe and Oliver Hayward-Cole did bring some relief to the constant attacks by the Bedford forwards and backs, but they eventually opened the scoring by an unconverted try. The Hammers were being taught a lesson in the scrums and in open play by the aggressive rucking by Bedford, but made a game of it by producing great tackling throughout the half to keep the score line down to 15-0 at half time.

In the second half the game follow the same format with the Bedford team running the game with good forward play sucking in the fast Hammers cover defence, before spinning the ball out wide to their backs to scores several tries. The Hammers under 13’s didn’t disgrace themselves as they made a few chances themselves to score a try, but lack of support at vital moments meant the attacks were repelled by the Bedford defence.

The final score was 47-0 to Bedford, but the Hammers team can take some comfort that they didn’t give up and tackled really well with Mathis Rosier, Thomas Thornhill and Gabriel Corrandi putting in good performances in the second half.