Great performance

The annual festival of mini rugby was a great start to the season for the U10s.

The first match against Ely showed that the early start for the team was too much and they were caught dozing once too often and gave away five tries without getting any back.

The second match was a different story, playing Newmarket, St Ives were suddenly a different team, competing strongly at the rucks, passing the ball around and putting in some great tackles. Three tries from Connor, two from Stan (the new boys showing the old guard how it is done and one from James (pulling one back for the long servers) with none against is an impressive performance. It is a long time since we had such an emphatic victory.

Timetabling and delays then meant that we had a 90 minute wait for the next match and the boys went off the boil a bit. Coming up against a strong Cambridge side they gave away four tries without scoring any of their own, but this score line doesn't give us the crdit we deserved from our play, competing for the ball hard all the way to the final whistle.

By the time the fourth game against Shelford came around we had lost James (ankle injury) and several other were carrying knocks that slowed them down, but the same positive attitude was still there, we gave up seven tries but Connor got us one back.

The fifth match was cancelled as we couldn't field anthing close to a full fit team.

This was a magificent team performance and this was what made the difference today, eveybody playing as a team. After such a team performace it almost seems unfair to chose a man of the match (festival). Francis was affective at scrum half, Thomas had some good ball carries especially against Shelford. Alec and George were both effective carrying the ball forward and hard into the tackles. William as always putting in some hard tackles in defence. Special mention has to go to James, he had his try and some great runs on the attack along with some good hits in defence, his determination is best summed up with his attempt to get back on the pitch after his ankle injury so as not to let the team down until it was pointed that if he couldn't walk he copuldn't play.

Extra special mention also to Harry, no try today but he really contributed to the team, some great runs and in defence and every time he out in a tackle in defence his determination to rip the ball was inspiring. I lost count of the number of times a maul formed around an opposition player only for Harry to suddnly appear out of the middle of it carrying the ball.

In the end it was impossible to decide and there are two men of the matches - Connor and Stanley, Connor for his long runs and five tries on the day along with some very effective tackling, Stanley for his two tries and ferocious tackling in defence and both for the absolute refusal to give up and giving their best until the very last.

Next weeks match against ELy is cancelled so see you for training at 10.