Leicester Forest U14s vs MH U14s

With half term holiday and a number of injuries it was a rather depleted squad who travelled to Leicester Forest. With only 15 players in the squad, all the lads knew they had to put a good shift in. Following a disappointing defeat the week before, the lads were determined to get back to winning ways and, more importantly, back to their own successful style of rugby.

From past experience we knew the LF pack are very effective in the mauls and rucks so our team were keen to keep the ball alive and make use of the wide pitch. Dan Hands and Will Dawson proved to be a very effective half-back pairing, providing quick and accurate distribution to the centre pairing of Oli Hoare and Tom Wainwright. Oli, who normally plays back row, looked very comfortable at inside centre and proved a real problem for the opposition defence with penetrating runs and great offloads to release Tom to score the opening try and the first of his 7 for the day. With a strong centre partnership the back 3 of Jack Rowlatt, Geordan Bedford and Josh Guerriero were able to get a lot of freedom to run at the opposition and were instrumental in most of the tries scored. Josh was very close to scoring himself after a strong run straight through the opposition before offloading to a team mate. Jack, who normally provides a rock solid defensive anchor, was able to spend more time in attack and ran in four tries.

The LF forwards, as always, provided a tougher challenge for our pack but the Harborough lads were more than a match for them. The front row of Max Halls, Sammy Stamps and Thomas Dyson did a great job at scrum time and provided a solid platform. They were also dynamic in the loose with Max and Thomas making some strong runs and Sammy rucking over well. The second row of Josh Ford and Matthew Robinson were very quick to the breakdown, with Josh winning a lot of ball and scoring an excellent try and Matthew crashing over for his first try for the club. The back row of Thomas Melody, Will Adams and Ben Marshall, were their usual rampaging selves, with Will giving the opposition backs nightmares. Thomas and Ben provided penetrating runs, assisting in several team tries and also gaining individual scores, Thomas(1), Ben(2).

With Will (6) and Tom (1) gaining the conversions, it ended up a very dominant victory.

The opposition, to their credit, continued to battle for the full 50 minutes and were able to give a few new lads an opportunity to play rugby.

We now look forward to the first round of the County Cup next weekend against Coalville.

Bruce Wainwright