HMRUFC 21 Littleborough 28

With the fog lifting gently from the allotment end of the seniors pitch, the Moor under twelves came together! A total of 13 players , Matthew on his returning debut after a couple of years away! And Jordan playing up from our under 11 team, facing a littlebrough team of 18 or so!

A great game for the Moor, a well matched team for us to play against and, although the final result was not a win, we played very well and took the opposition to task but made a few mistakes that they took advantage of.

Our training before the match focused on driving through and tackling hard.- both were well used in the match. Our forwards were very much the power house with strong frequent drives as always from Tom Y and Sam which kept there defence working. Our rucking was was initially poor but turned around very quickly as we put into practice the training ground techniques, although a little too enthusiastic on occasions with almost the whole team getting stuck in. Even Erik and Mathew posted out on the wing were running from the touch lines to get into the ruck!

Still with our forwards George had gained some new gusto and was driving in at any opportunity. Cameron was a real star, real aggression and skill pouncing on loose ball like a panther on prey - time and time again!

Jude was brought into the scrum at number 8, a position new to him but proved his natural ability to rugby by rising to the challenge - as evidence by being the muddiest player at the end of the match!

The addition of Jude as number 8 in the scrum allowed Oliver a little more time than last week and really started to control the ball out to our backs through Tom R and Ben who cleared our lines and converted all our try's with his powerful boot.

The opposition also kicked from their lines and Seb had great positional play at full back to be in the right place every time to react. The aggression and gusto in the ruck was also present in our tackling and as ever Josh showed us a clinical master class in the crunch tackle so much so the opposition threw a few punches and Josh stood his ground!

Tries were equally traded throughout the match but two breakaway tries in the second half when a couple of slipped tackels in the backs allowed them to run round us. Unusually for us our tries were score through forward drives with great support play allowing momentum to continue.

Some real positives can be taken from this highly competitive match, none greater than that the team were talking to each other and with ass coach Ruby having lost his voice earlier in the week very little shouting from the touchline - fortunately little was needed!

Jude was a well deserved MOM but such was the strength of our play there could have been any number of candidates for the trophy.