Romford U13s 12 v Maidenhead U13s 5
Sunday 21st November 2004

Sunday this week entailed a long drive to Essex for a match-up with Romford RFC. A cold morning, not helped by an earlier than normal set off meant everyone arrived wide awake and raring to go... historically Romford RFC has provided two 1st team Captains to Maids so we were meeting old friends in a way and were welcomed accordingly.

The Dads all shied away from the local speciality the Big Boy's Rugby Breakfast Sandwich! A full breakfast in a roll!!! Great value for £3.75 but too daunting for most....many stuck to the more traditional fare of Coffee and a bacon roll.

Some Dads had played at Romford 15 years ago and whilst the grounds are in the same place they have grown some more grass on the Police Dogs Training area now!

This session was a warm up for the league game against Windsor next week, which will bring some much needed practice for the squad after recent losses. Romford whilst big in stature are somewhat inexperienced but that didn't seem to show as their forwards soon got stuck in to Maids and tempers did at points get a little strained.

Whilst refereeing is a delicate art, and certainly I wouldn't seek to criticise here, let's just say the ref favoured a open game with liberal permission given to handling in the ruck and judicious off side play, which somewhat caught Maids off guard. The game was a handling game with very little kicking, but sadly the Maids forwards were too frequently pushed off the ball and entered too many ruck in an upright stance so winning the ball proved hard. Warwick - you were missed sorely.

Consequently Maids found it difficult to build phases of play which is partially why the score was 12-5 to Romford at the end of the day.

The Maids backs were a little ragged with very little on field communications leading to the backs getting dragged out of position and therefore were frequently unable to get over the gain line. Some game strategy work will be needed this week to re-emphasise what the boys have been told but on the field of play seem unable to put into practice.

Windsor next week will be a tough challenge....lots of self reflection required from the squad now and Friday's extra training session will be a call to arms in preparation for the league fixture.