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| U9 tour squad and coaches |
| Maidenhead Under 9’s
travelled to Burnham-on-Sea RFC to take part in their
annual rugby festival. Teams from across the South and
West of England took part in the festivities. Maidenhead fielded two well-balanced sides, the Lions and the Tigers, in a league that was to provide them with some of their toughest games of the season. The weekend did not start well with both teams losing 30-0 in their opening games against Cobham and Hertford. Tigers were the first to fight back and secured a 20-20 draw in their match against Moortown, with William Cadden and Alex Pegg scoring two tries each. Lions followed this with a 25-15 win over Westcombe Park with tries coming from Morgan Davies, Richie O’Reilly, Felix O’Sullivan, Charlie Johnson and William Ansell. The celebrations were to be short lived as Tigers then crashed against a well-disciplined side from Wimbledon. Old Ruts put six tries past them without any response. The crunch match of the tournament for the Maidenhead boys came at the end of the first day when they were pitched against each other. The first half was closely contested with Richie O’Reilly opening the score for Lions. Rory Harte equalised for Tigers only to see O’Reilly put Lions back into the lead. With great support play from the rest of the Tigers Harte scored two more tries before Johnson levelled the scores at half time. In the second half Tigers gained the upper hand with Pegg and Cadden grabbing one each before Ansell pulled one back for Lions. Tigers immediately responded with two more tries from Harte to make the final score 35-20. |
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| U9 Tigers |
| The following day Tigers opened
the play with their match against Westcombe Park. An
early mistake allowed Westcombe to score first but then
Tigers went on the rampage and put seven past them with
Pegg (1), Cadden (1) and Harte (5) scoring the tries. Euphoria was quickly to turn to despair as Lions crashed to a 30-0 defeat at the hands of Old Ruts and Tigers lost 20-5 to Hertford despite some excellent passing between Patrick Boyd and Cadden and some sterling defence from Miles Ashton. In the final game of the tournament Lions lost 30-0 to the eventual winners, Cobham. Tigers finished fourth in the league with Lions in fifth place. Both teams showed great determination against some very strong opposition and were a credit to the club and their coaches. Tigers: Patrick Boyd, William Cadden, Chris Cameron, Rory Harte, Joe Davidson, Jordan Foster, Miles Ashton, Alex Pegg, Steven Palmer and Angus Burns. Lions: Chris Heley, Steve Thompson, Nick Jackson, Charlie Johnson, Connor McArthy, Ritchie O’Reilly, Felix O’Sullivan, Duncan James, William Ansell, Morgan Davis and Phil Roberts. |
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| U9 team talk |