Another good turnout from the U15s meant they were able to lend Croydon 3 players each half and thanks must go to Harry, Lewis, Warren, Zeki, Tom N and Capello for playing just as committedly for both sides.

Having met in last week’s 9s final both sides knew it was going to be a hard physical game. The Dragons started like they finished last week. A very good kick off from Josh Lamb, clearing the Croydon defence to roll out over the dead ball and force the goal line dropout, a good return and a couple of quick plays saw Lewis Hollidge scoot over from Dummy Half. Sam Crean added the 2. Completing the set from the resulting kick off meant the turnover was on the Hurricanes try line and more great defence saw Croydon kick on the 5 tackle from within their 40. Another good attacking set was finished with wing Harris Debonnaire racing away to score in the corner.

10 nil up after ten minutes was unfortunately as good as it got for the Dragons. As soon as the line speed in defence dropped the Hurricanes were good and clever enough to exploit any weak tacklers or gaps in the Dragons defence and did just that. Quickly it was back to 10 all and despite another well worked try for prop Sam Crean out wide with the 2 also added by Sam, Croydon started to pull away.

Although it was discussed at half time, the line speed or tackling never reached the intensity of that first 10mins and Croydon continued to pull away. The Dragons were still dangerous going forward and added another 10 points with fine individual tries from second row Zeki Yesilmen and fullback Christie Teehan, both after good sets to build pressure, the 2 was added by Sam. Croydon were still able to exploit any weakness and ran in a total of 8 tries for a final score of 26 to 46 in their favour.

A real wake up call for the Dragons in defence and but for some great covering back notably from Tom Barkel, Christie Teehan and Harris Debonnaire the score could have been even higher. It wasn’t all negative though with the Dragons not only completing sets going forward but looking really dangerous in attack. There were also really good signs in defence as well, when the line speed was there it was awesome in spells, but it needs everyone to be putting the effort in or it isn’t sustainable for those that are.

Dragons U15 squad: Harry Lockyer, Danny Zborowska, Christie Teehan, Jason Cragg Tom Barkel, Rhys Gue, Anthony Parish, Harrison Rowe, Harris Debonnaire, Chamael Keletaona, Josh Lamb, Capello Musse, Warren Banfield, Tom Narborough, Sam Crean, Lewis Hollidge, Stanley Dadson and Zeki Yesilmen.

Try scorers:
Christie Teehan, Sam Crean, Lewis Hollidge, Harris Debonnaire, Zeki Yesilman.

Conversions:
Sam Crean x3.