5th October 2008

BRAINTREE U9’S

Braintree Leopards opened the new season with a triangular against Bury St Edmunds and South Woodham Ferrers. The transition from “Tag Rugby” to “Full Contact Rugby” is a big step for all the players but they all put the last few weeks’ training into practice and produced some commendable rugby.

Braintree 10 Bury St Edmunds 5

Braintree opened the scoring with a great try from Sam Dalgety and proceeded to dominate the first half with a 2nd try from Robert Oakley. They played with conviction showing some excellent mauling and passing the ball out to the wing with great success.

In the 2nd half Bury took advantage of some poor handling by Braintree and scored their only try. Braintree didn’t let this get them down though; they continued to tackle hard and kept the ball in their half for the remainder of the match.

Braintree 15 South Woodham Ferrers 20

With the weather rapidly deteriorating Braintree took on South Woodham Ferrers. SWF took an early lead but Braintree fought back to equalise with a try from Robert. Braintree were then forced to defend for the remainder of the first half allowing SWF to score twice more. Handling errors increased as the pitch began to resemble an ice rink and the ball an eel but an excellent period of play from Braintree with Ella Vickers showing impressive determination despite, or maybe because of, having her nose trodden on resulted in a 3rd try of the day for Robert. Braintree then had a great spell of play with Morgan Vickers making a class switch which left SWF completely disorientated enabling Robert to score a hat trick.