Big Thanks to Aireborough

A massive thank you to Aireborough RUFC for inviting us to play today otherwise we would have had yet another day off due to waterlogged pitches. We were originally slated to travel to Bramley today but unfortunately their U9 team have folded so we were slotted in for a training session instead.

Also, thanks to Adrian Hollick for organising and facilitating today's game.

And thank all of you for turning up at short notice to get two teams out! Notable and worthy effort by all

Mention must be made of an impeccably observed minutes silence by the players for Remembrance Sunday.

The game(s) - we mixed up the teams today as we had enough for two teams. Aireborough had 7 players but were willing to have two games. Their players were a mixture of pace, guile and sheer size. Team 1 showed a lot of respect to the big players and they piled through the defensive line like one of our players breaks a trophy (very easily). It took the smallest player on the pitch (Josh Falkingham) to face the biggest player on the pitch, face him out, get his legs and dump him on the floor for the boys to understand that size is no match for a perfect tackling technique (Grasshopper moment). After that he got nowhere near the line. Jack Gallagher, in a man of the match performance, in the first game showed true aggression in the tackle. No respecter of his own body he lead by example in putting in crunching tackle after crunching tackler to limit the attacking presence of Aireborough. Sheer determination and effort generated a big win. Big tackles, committing two and three players in those tackles made for an enthralling spectacle. Superb support play allowed some wonderful offload ball in the tackle to get over the gain line time and time again. Try after try was scored with Sam Yewdall bagging 6 on his own. The final score - Aireborough 40; Yarnbury 70.

The second game was much tighter by comparison. Again, after the learning in the first game, the tackles were strong and effective. In a similar vein to the first the support play was exemplary with very few handling errors. Sam Farndon was a worthy man of the match in this game. He covered every blade of grass it seemed. Always available for the offload and the mazy runs were a delight to see. Very well played young man. Alex Lee, with his usual defence splitting runs from deep was the high scorer with a personal tally of 4 in this game.

That said it was a narrow defeat by 13 tries to 12. Some dodgy refereeing decisions allowed a late flurry of Aireborough tries (my bad) to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat. Final score Aireborough 65; Yarnbury 60.

Next week, by sheer coincidence, we are back at Aireborough. If today's games are anything to go by we should be in for a treat.