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U13s' brave Bulls bounce back at Drifters 19th November 2006 |
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Maids Under 13 Bulls squad took on a large and “physical” Drifters’ A side on Sunday and showed great character to earn a 5-5 draw…and, some would say, a moral victory. The Bulls squad, which contained several players new to Maids this season and one new to rugby altogether, played the more attractive rugby but were thwarted time after time by Drifters’ one stand-out player, their large and powerful full-back. It was the same player who gave the hosts the lead early on, as the Maids attempts to tackle went in too high and allowed him to run two thirds of the length of the pitch to score. As so often, however, this proved to be a wake up call and Drifters never looked like scoring again, whereas a whole series of Maids attacks, notably from Sam Balfour off the base of the scrum and Fred Reid at centre, were stopped just short. Sam actually drove over the line once, but the ball was adjudged “held up” by the excellent referee, and it looked as if all the boys’ resilience would come to nought, when Michael Trevena wrenched the ball from a maul and crashed over to level things. This was a fine effort from the whole squad in what were, at times, difficult circumstances. It was particularly pleasing that the squad held their discipline under extreme provocation, whilst Drifters went a man down to a red card. There are some technical aspects to work on, namely getting tackles in lower, but most areas for development relate to our running theme for this season: decision making. If we can get the timing of offloads a bit sharper; the selection of options for running lines a bit smarter (into space is good!), and then know when to back ourselves and take on defenders round the outside then we will start scoring some great tries. Some individual mentions: good tackling from Jack Adcock, improving all the time; strong running from Jake Dawson; good attack and defence from Niall Collins – no-one would have guessed you only started playing this season; and congratulations to the tight forwards Blake Nicol, George Thomas, Adam Callaway, Jason Bates, Michael Trevena, Kaya Baxter for never taking a step back against much bigger opposition. The squad: |