U13s overpower Reading

Reading U13s 0 v Maidenhead U13s 52
Sunday 5th February 2006

The U13s were on the road again on Sunday, travelling the short distance along the A4 to neighbours Reading for their latest Berkshire League fixture. As the early morning mist cleared, the sun shone down on a compelling performance packed with power and pace.

Reading contained Maids for the opening 10 minutes but the boys gradually battered them into submission. The opening try highlighted the advantage of Maids’ larger pack, with a scrum five metres out that pegged Reading back. James Parrott took the resulting pass at pace and cut a good angle to dive home. Tom Simpson converted to put seven points on the board.

The boys could have done more by spreading the ball wide instead of taking it through the centre but they were retaining possession well in the rucks and mauls and rarely left Reading’s half of the pitch. A nicely worked move from a penalty saw Tom Simpson score and convert to give Maids a 14-point cushion. There was plenty of good tackling coming from Sam Yates, Tristan Cadden and Rory Creffield.

Play was flowing nicely now and Maids' powerful pack dominated proceedings. Ben Pritchard honed his handing-off skills as he crashed through from a scrum to make it 19.0. Great distribution between Michael Habgood, Paul Sayers and Tom Simpson ended in another try for Tom to give the team an unassailable 27.0 half-time lead.

Reading came back at Maids from the whistle, starting the livelier and pushing forward. But then the boys stepped up a gear and played some of their best rugby of the season. Their passing was more fluid and the four tries that followed demonstrated the advantages of spreading the ball about.

Charlie Wickham-Smith provided the overlap to Ben Pritchard’s strong run to increase the score to 32.0. Another impressive passing move from Ben and Adam Roels set up Elliot Reid for another. The boys’ well-organised training regime was clearly paying off now in terms of their fitness and stamina levels as they relentlessly attacked Reading, finding gaps with their decisive passing.

A great offload by Paul Sayers gave Ben another scoring opportunity in the corner to nudge the score up to 42.0. A good run by Michael Habgood created space for Elliot to score his second before Michael rounded off the scoring by side-stepping his way round Reading’s defence to touch down between the posts. The scoreline was impressive, as was the manner in which the team worked as a unit, dominated the set pieces and used the full width of the pitch to excellent effect.