Great Hospitality from Gosforth RFC for the Carlisle Under 9’s

This was the boys first experience of the synthetic surface and it proved to be a real advantage to the Carlisle running and ball handling style of play.

Carlisle fielded 2 experienced teams against Gosforth over 4 mini matches. Both teams played extremely well as Gosforth were admirable opponents, who showed no sign of weakness despite the consistently high quality of the Carlisle boys team play and individual running.

The coaches were particularly pleased to see the start of some good teamwork moves, with players looking to pass others into space and some starting to develop better timing in their passing and offloads to try and score as a team rather than taking the ball into the tackle every time. It was also especially pleasing to see some have started to develop an understanding of the strengths of their team mates and were working in pairs and small groups to create opportunities for each other.

Again, we don’t officially keep scores for these matches but Gosforth were valiant opponents and all the Carlisle lads enjoyed the games and the chance to showcase some of their new skills.

The hospitality shown by Gosforth RFC to our U9’s and also to our U10’s after their game was cancelled was quite fantastic and we passed on a big “thank you” to them.

One thing that was entirely self evident from visiting Gosforth was the benefit of the 4G pitch. It was brilliant for the kids to play on, could take a stud, enabled the boys to play running rugby……..and it was only because of the 4G pitch that we got a game at all. Phone your councillor, your MP, start a petition – Carlisle needs a 4G pitch, for rugby, for football, for games, for training, for everyone in our community!