U12s entertain at Henley

Sunday 27th February 2005

The Under 12s Sharks and Marlins took on a quick, strong Henley squad in two entertaining encounters on Sunday. End to end, high quality rugby from both clubs more than compensated for the bitterly cold conditions.

Sharks
Sharks and Henley As slugged out an evenly contested game. Both sides tackled hard and spread the ball around well. Henley were well organised and technically sharp. The Sharks’ coaches were therefore impressed with the boys’ consistency, with the team winning just about every scrum and dominating the line-outs. Tom Simpson, TJ Hudson, Rory Creffield and George Kirk all made positive contributions.

Henley were very quick on the break and after a lively first half scored soon after the re-start when Sharks unnecessarily lost possession. Forwards Alex Jones, Charlie Wickham-Smith, James Parrott put in some heavy-duty tackling. Elliot Reid provided extra driving force in the scrums and almost scored, the ball slipping from his grasp just metres from the line.

The hosts doubled their advantage with another quick break. Good work by Paul Sayers, Tristan Cadden and Sam Yates won Sharks a scrum, 10 metres out but the move broke down. An heroic tackle by Sam McCarthy felled the much larger breakaway runner, but not before he had passed to a teammate to score. Sharks rallied and scored a deserved consolation try at the end, with Oliver Evans diving over.

Marlins
Marlins put in another great team performance against a combined Henley Bs and As team. The boys won their tackles and drove forward against stronger opponents. Owan Haughey, David Walker, Ben Peppiatt and Seb Owen kept the pace ticking over. Forwards Daniel Tydeman, James Holt, Michael James and Dimitri Pressland gave as good as they received in the scrums.

Matt Roberts put in some telling tackles when it counted and Paul Sweeny and Tom Bunn were behind many of the best passing moves. Henley showed their quality with three well-worked tries. All credit to the Marlins for making the hosts fight so hard for the win.