Sunday 24th October 2004

On the 24th October Maids played Henley RFC in a joint training session and competitive games.

After recent disappointments in training sessions against Bath and Sutton & Epsom where tackling standards and poor decision making let Maids down this was to be a strong test of the squad.

Henley have a series of powerful forwards and clearly turned up very confident in this a part of their game. Maids buckled down to a tough morning’s rugby and ran out winning the contest. Strong tackling, and intelligent backs play led to Maids winning the first two sessions of the four match/quarters and narrowly losing the last session leaving a good solid aggregate showing and renewed confidence in the squad.

Perhaps the highlight of the morning was a try scored by Jordy Foster running from his own try line to the opposite end in a nail biting dash against a chasing Henley full back and wing to score a very tiring put down. But the morning was characterised by good backs interlinking play and very aggressive tackling from the the Maids forwards meaning the powerful Henley forwards were stopped in their tracks.

Henley left Braywick clearly disappointed and a little surprised that their impressive forwards had met stern opposition and come off second best.

But stiffer challenges await the Maids Squad with their first fixture against Redingensians rapidly approaching, and a baptism of league rugby that should be entertaining with the recent loses of Maids players to Redingensians.

Watch this space