Battling Bears stumble at Solihull

Walsall Under 8s suffer their first turnaround of the season despite a brave performance against Birmingham and Solihull Bees.

Our toughest fixture of the season so far saw us make the long jaunt down to Portway in South Birmingham to face the Bees. As they only had a squad of ten it was two games each against the same team for our Polars and Grizzlies before a rematch from last week against each other. The Polars (Will(c), Alfie, Jack, Jean-Nick, Thane, Elliot and Freddie) faced off against the opposition first. Fantastic runs from Will with great support from Jean-Nick and Alfie saw us make a bright start, but handling errors and stray wingers saw us fall a try short, losing 8-7 despite the valiant efforts of scrum half Jack and wingers Thane and Freddie in defence. The Polars second game saw them build on this great first performance as despite being 4-3 down at half time and Freddie complaining about a broken nail they tightened up their defence, with Elliot the star coming up first for every re start, and won 6-5 only conceding the one try right at the death with the game already won! Well done Polar Bears! The Grizzlies (Alex (c), Henry, Ewan, Dontae, Reuben, Govind, Dominic and Luke) started off better, after some expert coaching from Alex, Helen, Lee and Matt, to push Birmingham and Solihull into some tight defensive positions. Brilliant running from Govind with great support from Reuben, Dontae and scrum half Ewan saw them hold the lead until the final play when a knock on saw a Bees break make the final score 6 apiece. In their second game the Grizzlies yet again saw some great attacking sprints from Govind with Dom and Henry supporting magnificently on the wings and Luke coast in through the Birmingham back line with one mazy run but another handling error late on saw them miss out a deserved second draw and they lost 6-4. 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses then before they faced each other. With everyone on the pitch space was limited but it didn't prevent Polars Thane and Freddie from punishing the Grizzlies defence with Thane's darting cross field run the pick of the tries and Freddie taking his tally for the day to 5 (he tells me) as the Polars won 5-4 despite Govind's best efforts as he finished with 10 tries for the day! Well done to every boy today as you all played really well and thank you to all the parents who made the long journey down too. Sutton away next week so let's push on #Grrr