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U10s entertain St Patrick's day crowd at the Madejski Sunday 22nd March 2009 |
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The U10s put in a fantastic performance at the London Irish St Patrick’s Day festival on Sunday and came within a whisker of lifting the trophy. They competed in a tournament on the University of Reading playing fields in the morning, knowing that the top team from each of the two pools would play out the final in front of 21,000 fans at the Madejski Stadium in the afternoon. Maids entered two teams (the Bulls and the Stags) and were unlucky to find them both placed in the same group, meaning that only one of them would be able to make it through to the final. The Stags punched above their weight in all their matches and were a tad unfortunate to finish in fourth in the group. Their first match saw them dispatch Oxford quite comfortably, with Jake Jenkins running in two unanswered tries. They then came unstuck against a powerful Farnham side 2-0, before drawing 1-1 with Redingensians, Gregor Peberdy getting the score. Meanwhile, the Bulls came into the tournament full of confidence. And that confidence appeared fully justified as they got off to a blistering start, dispatching Oxford 6-0 in the opening game, with Payne (2), Wells, Sutton, Sanders and Green all touching down. Their second game against Farnham was a much tougher affair, but the Bulls eventually ran out 1-0 winners as Adamcsik scored an excellent try in the corner. A relatively uneventful 2-0 victory over Redingensians (Wells and Sutton scoring) meant the Bulls needed a win in their final game against (yes, you guessed it….) the Stags, to clinch a place in the final! Payne, McCaffrey and Wells scored well-worked tries to ensure that it would be the Bulls who would be running out onto the pitch at Madejski in front of hundreds of screaming Maids fans later that afternoon! The final pitted Maidenhead against a very big and powerful Bracknell outfit. From the off, the Bracknell pack tore into Maidenhead who, to begin with, appeared a little overawed; they were soon 2-0 and then 3-1 down. However, Maids quickly realised that strong tackling, combined with quick passing out to the flanks would get them back into the game. Adamcsik scored his second of the game to make it 3-2 and then, with time running out, Sutton dived over in the corner to tie up the match. Just as Maids were gaining the ascendancy the referee blew the final whistle….a couple of minutes more and they would have undoubtedly finished the job. The final score was 3-3, but the rules of the tournament meant that Bracknell were crowned champions as they had scored first. A fantastic day out in the sunshine ended with the Maids being presented their runners-up medals by Irish lock, ‘Big’ Bob Casey. Bulls: Stags: |
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