U8s end glittering season on a high

5th/6th May 2007

Maidenhead's Under 8s ended the season just as they had started it - with an impressive tournament victory and some wonderfully expansive rugby which blew the opposition away. Having already been crowned champions at tournaments hosted by Wasps, London Irish, Newbury and their home club this year, the young guns from Maidenhead headed off on their end of season tour to the Burnham-on-Sea rugby festival, hopeful of returning home with more silverware.

The festival was played over the May Bank Holiday weekend in glorious sunshine and attracted teams from all over the UK. As defending champions, Maids knew that they would be the team that everyone wanted to beat, but they had a strong squad and did not shrink from the challenge.

Maids had a gruelling schedule of matches against teams from Sidcup, Burnham and Cwmbran, as well as a Barbarians side, in conditions more appropriate for a relaxing game of cricket than a series of fast-paced rugby encounters. On the Saturday of the tournament, Maids had enjoyed victories over both of Cwmbran's teams, Sidcup's B team and the Barbarians side. The only blot was a nail-biting defeat to Sidcup A, which saw a last minute equalising try for Maids ruled out by the referee.

However, on the Sunday Maids got back to their winning ways, with revenge against Sidcup and good victories against Burnham and Cwmbran. This set up an exciting final against the Welsh side, to decide the overall winners of the festival. Maids got off to a flying start and were 4-1 up at half-time, putting on a fabulous display of passing rugby and powerful running. But Cwmbran were not going to lie down; they fought back strongly, roared on by their partisan support, and got to within one try of levelling things up. However, Maids had not bagged four trophies this season without knowing how to close out this sort of tough encounter and emerged on the right side of a 6-5 scoreline. They then had the privilege of being presented with their trophy by Bath and England hooker, Lee Mears.

Maids' top try scorers during the weekend were Harry Wells (16), Alex Sutton (12), Harry McCaffrey (11), Olie McGregor (8) and Thomas Maclean (5), but it was the team's never-say-die attitude and unselfish support play which really put them head and shoulders above their opponents. Special mention should go to Jake Holden, Athena Peberdy, Marc Hedouin, Gregor Peberdy and Amar Sidhu, who displayed these qualities to great effect throughout the tournament. During the season, which has probably been one of the most successful experienced by a Maidenhead side, the Under 8s have only lost 3 of their 61 matches and have scored 367 tries at an average of over six per game.