The U15’s or more accurately the U14’s expectations took a sharp jump upwards on the 21st after taking on the Sussex Merlins. The U15’s still without a year 10 left the field disappointed having let the Merlins magic away a point in the dying seconds. A point the Sussex team were clearly delighted to leave with against their younger opposition.

In truth, the Panthers had been allowing the Merlins back into the contest all game following well worked tries with unforced errors allowing their opposition back into the game. The contrast in playing styles was significant with the Panthers drawing the Merlins in with forward crashes before sending it wide to the backs whilst the opposition were more reliant on individual runs.

The Panthers were blooding four new U14’s to the 13 aside game, but you’d have been hard pressed to point them out as they slotted in well.

At half-time the Panthers were up by 6 points, but faced the furious North wind in the second half, which proved to be crucial later in the game.

Following an exchange of scores and the Panthers leading by 8 points, a delicate chip over the defensive line was seized upon by the centre who when over for the score only for the dummy runner to be ruled offside at the kick.

With ten to go and the Panthers again bearing down on the opposition, another play the ball penalty was given against the Merlins for interference at the PTB. The Panthers elected to kick, but at the critical moment a gust of wind took it fractionally wide.

To compound matters, the away side were allowed to take a quick tap 20 instead of the goal line drop it should have been. This proved decisive as the Merlins made 40 metres before being tackled, so instead of the Panthers having possession around the Merlins own 40, it was the Merlins who had possession on the Panthers 40 with 4 tackles to go.

The Merlins went on to score to bring them somewhat fortuitously to within 4 points within only a couple of minutes left on the clock. The Panthers kicked off to the Merlins and started to defend. Sussex were allowed to make around 20 meters before they applied pressure and forced a knock on. With little over 2 minutes to play, the cry ‘up the jumper time’ rang out.

Out the back of the scrum came the ball, and was spun towards a waiting forward. But as with the penalty, the wind again played its part and the ball fell two feet short hitting the forwards shins and bouncing into the grateful arms of the Merlins.

The Panthers defended well holding off until fifth tackle when they were adjudged to have held down the tackler and on the last play the Merlins dived over to square the match.

So a hard and maybe unfair lessons on the Panthers, but they have learned two valuable things:
• They can’t just pay against the older teams, they can beat them
• Managing the last ten minutes of a game is just as important as the 50 minutes that precede it.