U9s earn "Guard of Honour" at London Irish Festival

Sunday 18th March 2007

Maidenhead RFC U9s Earn 'Guard of Honour' at London Irish Festival - Maidenhead rugby club U9 A and B squads took part of the London Irish St Patrick's Tournament and Party on Sunday 18 March. The day began with a tournament for U7s to U10s, held at the Oratory School near Reading, followed by attending the London Irish v London Wasps Guinness Premiership rugby match at the Madejski Stadium.

Maidenhead U9 As (Eagles) performed strongly in their pool, meeting Barnstaple in their first match. The Eagles were strong from the start with great passing and moving forward, which resulted in a try by Abigail Dow not long after the match started. The whole squad worked hard in rucks, clearing the ball out and driving forward providing Scott Prince with a great run and to score the second try. Abigail Dow scored a third giving Eagles a 25 - 0 win over Barnstaple. The Eagles second match was a tough one against the eventual U9 tournament winners, Farnham. Although the Eagles played well with great tackles, Farnham were stronger and won the match 10-0. The Eagles went into their third match against Reading with sheer determination and dominated the match. With great ripping from Ben Lawrence and tackling from William Lawrence and Chris Cousins, the match was won 20 - 0 with 2 tries from Joel Greene, 1 from Liam Cook and the 4th from Julian Guy after a great run down the pitch. The Eagles final match in their pool was against Wootton Bassett and, again, the Eagles went in determined to do well and won the game 15 - 0. Daniel Cutler did a magnificent run to score his try and the two further tries were scored by Abigail Dow and Chris Cousins. As Farnham won all their pool games, the Eagles ended up Group runners-up.

The Maidenhead U9 Bs (Hawks) played extremely well and performed brilliantly against the other teams they played which were all A squads. The Hawks showed dogged determination in each of their games and with greatly improved support play and driving forward. The biggest credit to the team was that there was a resolve to play as a team and not to give up and continue to try right up to the very end of each game. The first of the four games was against Aldermaston and the Hawks showed their team strength in a very even match to eventually come out winners with a very late try from Shane McKenna. The second game was against Aldershot & Fleet and the Hawks won this game straightforwardly 20 points tries to nil.

The Shane McKenna bagged a brace with the other tries coming from Tom Kynsaton and Lawrence Hull. It was in the third game that the B’s came up against some stronger opposition with London Irish and the Hawks eventually went down 10 points to 5 with Sasha Gil the only scorer for Maidenhead. The fourth game was against the eventual pool winners, Redingensians, Maidenhead ultimately lost this game 20 points to nil. However, during all the tournament matches the referees were also awarding points for fair play and the Eagles earned a massive 19 points, which meant they won the opportunity to take part as the Guard of Honour as the London Irish and Wasps teams came onto the pitch at the Madejski stadium. The squad was extremely proud, enjoyed the moment and a great match that afternoon, with London Irish beating Wasps 16 - 13.