U10s host Amber Valley

Amber Valley visited with a mixed side of ten and eleven-year olds. The warm up with new coach Matthew, Garvin and Andy making sure that cold muscles were awake. The quote “it’s like herding cats!” did float across the pitch. It shows the players were full on for the match, and you never get the whole warming up thing until you are not young any more. As the matches started the fine drizzle and biting cold turned my notepad into papier-mache.

This did not affect the Panthers and met the physicality of the older Amber-Valley players head on and returned it with swiftness and skill. For the second time Sam stepped up to referee and did a splendid job of keeping the match flowing playing the advantage with fast and accurate calls when needed. Several Panthers players made up the numbers for Amber Valley and played too well for my liking ?.

You know it’s a good match when all the coaches walk away from the match raving about the players. There was no player of the week as the entire squad played exceptionally well. Although I had a proud dad moment when Garvin was talking about the game, and one ruck when Felix entered at speed with Lindsey giving him the nickname “Bulldozer”.

Thoughts from the trenches:
Andy: I thought today they played extremely well, a lot quicker at setting up, used the space on the pitch well. The odd time they went down the blind side too much and could have gone wider. Even when they went down the blind side they were finishing. The level of the opposition was not as strongest we have faced, However the basics today, passing, tackling and the support play you could not falter it was all over the pitch in spades. Great break downs and at this age almost the complete performance. A few things to work on; being a bit quicker on the break down which waned a bit towards the end of the second game probably because they were tired. But overall could not fault them.

Garvin: A really good effort against two very capable Amber-Valley teams, although one team was slightly stronger than the other. It was good to play against some under 11 with that level physicality, and it was pleasing that they matched that physicality. Having done that, we used the pace we have in our team spreading the ball and scoring some good try’s.

Mathew (Jacko): A good team performance, everybody played well against an older physically stronger team, and we matched them in that. The difference in the teams was the gas our guys had, and when they got the ball, they just ran it and Amber-Valley did not have the pace. A really good team performance.

I am looking forward to the next weeks match, against Ashfield. But looking back at last time we played them on 03/05/17, I’m hoping it does not rain as much “killed my last camera!” and Lewis does not lose his shorts this time?

Thanks to the training squad Andy, Ben, Dave, Garvin, Mathew, Alice and Sam.

D.A. Cooke (Roving Match Reporter, U10(s) proof-reading Rachel Cooke any comments please email: Rugby@dacfox.com.