Saints U12s do themselves proud.
On Sunday 11th March the under 12S took part in this year’s county rugby festival. Before any rugby the first job of the day was the putting up the new team gazebo (don’t worry club officials we bought it ourselves) which should have taken about five mins, so half hour later with several parents all pitching in and all the other teams parents laughing at us we finally got the damn thing up (it was put together wrong in the factory apparently!!)
On to the rugby, First up in our pool were Camborne, playing up the hill the saints ground out a try to put us in the lead at half time. Down the hill second half the saints ran in three tries as well as picking up a few bruises from the Camborne forwards who didn’t like losing much! Final score 20 -0.
Game 2 saw us playing The Bolingey Barbarians, this team consisted of players from Perranporth, Redruth and St.Austells Kieran Eyre. The Saints underestimated the barbarians and started very slowly being out rucked for most of the first half until they decided to wake up and play abit to sneak a try before half time. The 2nd half down the hill was much better and the saints ran in three more tries although still were outclassed in the rucks! Final score 20 -0
Game 3 was the derby game against Llankelly fowey . Saints scored first when the saints fly half backed himself and went through the gap! Llankelly came straight back with their speedy scrum half picking and going from a scrum to fly past the spectating saints players who watched him fly by them with no one trying to stop him. Finally the saints woke up and ran in a try on half time. In the second half Llankelly battled hard but the saints scored 2 more tries to finish the game off. Final score 20 -5
With St.Austell sitting pretty on top of pool C with maximum points, we were drawn against winners of pool A the also unbeaten and previous county champions Redruth in the semi final.
From the kick off Redruth flew into the plucky saints hitting them with attack after attack but our boys never took a backward step , doubling up in tackles and flying into rucks our boys gave it their all until finally the pressure told and Redruth crashed over for the first try near half time. The half time team talk was simply to believe in yourselves and don’t give up and at the start of the 2nd half with all the boys shouting to fire each other up it made all the coaches and parents very proud! From a line out on the saints 5 metre line the ball was won and fed to big George who raced up the pitch to get a try and level the match (The only try redruth conceded) .Sadly straight from the kick off the reds kicked to touch and promptly won the line out and crashed over to make it 10 – 5. With the saints still refusing to be beaten we went straight back at them and gave it our all with George once again crossing the try line only to be put into touch before the ball was grounded. This was the final play of the game and Redruth promptly went on and beat Truro in the final.
As a coach of a team who have previously been hammered by pretty much every team that played us, it has been great to see our side win and make improvements over the past seasons as the under 12s have .To see the pride, determination and guts of these boys and the way that they played for each other in this game really was one of the most satisfying things yet. Well done boys you did us proud!