Fine display by U12s at Worthing festival

Sunday 19th March 2006

Maidenhead U12s finished runners up in the plate competition at the prestigious ‘Worthing B’ competition on Sunday. On hard pitches and in blustery but sunny conditions, Maids won 3 of their 5 games running in 10 fine tries in the process.

In the first pool game Maidenhead defeated Old Elthamians by 3 tries to 1, with Dhruv Surya, Iain Whiteford & Shiv Khindria on the score sheet. However a lapse of concentration in the second half resulted in an Old Elthamians' try, a score that would prove crucial later on.

The second fixture was a comprehensive 5 tries to 0 victory over a plucky Seaford Juniors side, with scoring contributions from Jonathan Perry, Jake Dawson, George Thomas, Iain Whiteford and Dhruv Surya.

The final pool game was a tense thriller against Haywards Heath with the Sussex side coming out on top by the only try of the match. Although Haywards Heath had a pacey set of backs they were well shackled by the Maidenhead defence and it was only some disappointing handing from the Maidenhead team following good play by the forwards, that led to their defeat.

Further disappointments to follow, with Maids failing to qualify for the semi-finals of the cup competition on the toss of a coin, having finished joint second best runner up.

However in the semi-final of the plate competition Maidenhead defeated their old rivals Old Elthamians by 2 tries to 1. The Maidenhead side was under the cosh throughout, but superb defence and fine tackling brought about a hard fought victory, with Gareth Orwin and Ross Brown scoring the decisive tries.

The final bought disappointment with Maids going down by 3 tries to 0 to a very strong Blackheath side, despite Maidenhead enjoying long periods camped in the opposition territory.

All of the squad played their part in a fine day's rugby with superb contributions from forwards and backs alike. The side was well skippered by Hal Orchard whose half time rhetoric during the first game, of ‘first half, excellent’, ‘second half, copy and paste’ is well worth remembering.

The Squad comprised:
George Thomas, Gareth Orwin, Iain Whiteford, Jake Dawson, Ross Brown, James Balmer, Piers Baron, Adam Callaway, Stephen Carn, Shiv Khindria, Blake Nicol, Calum O’Flaherty, Hal Orchard, Gareth Orwin, Jonathan Perry, Matthew Smith and Dhruv Surya.