Newark U10s Red and Blue Squads take on a depleted Nott’m Corsairs

A chilly, yet thankfully dry Sunday morning saw the Red squad (Oscar, Noah, Matthew W, Elliot, Alfie, Joe R, Max, Ethan, Alexander, Finn and Henry M) and the Blue Squad of (Henry B, Ted, James, Alex G, Matthew G, Reuben, Cody, Harley, Joshi, Dom and Blake) welcome two very depleted Nottingham Corsairs to Newark.

Their lack of numbers allowed plenty of game time for our boys who rotated round to make up their numbers and it was great to see that our boys made the effort whatever shirt they were wearing and strengthened their teams significantly.

Red Squad;
1st Game, The Reds dominated at the breakdown, winning ball time and time again, despite our boys not taking the ball into contact. It was great to see a majority of the lads putting their recent coaching into practice as well as then moving the ball into open space. Some good open running rugby.

2nd game, followed a similar pattern with Nottingham racing into an early lead as they took advantage of some poor tackling and an initial lack of aggression. Half time allowed the boys the opportunity to get back to basics and the second period saw some great individual breaks, a complete dominance again in the rucks and some much needed improved tackling. The last play of the game saw Newark cross the line after a combination of these three elements, an excellent end to the game for the Reds.

Blue Squad;

1st Game; The Blues dominated throughout the first game, repeatedly turning over their ball at the breakdown, occasionally deciding to take the hard route through the defending traffic rather than move the ball into space. James displaying some excellent running onto the ball at pace breaking their defensive line. The best move of the day started around the half way on the right wing and by drawing defenders, running onto the ball at pace and moving the ball across the field with nearly all the lads playing their part in the move resulting in Reuben scoring in the left hand corner. Excellent free flowing rugby!

Occasionally at restarts and at their breakdown our defensive line was too slow in pushing up which allowed a couple of their capable and skilful runners the space the exploit, but all in all an excellent team display.

2nd Game; The Blues continued to dominate into the second game displaying excellent rucking technique and really attacking the breakdown, learning from the first game resulted in much improved communication in our defensive line putting their attack under significant pressure. Still showed a tendency of making an easy game of evasion difficult by driving into the traffic rather than move the ball into space! But our support play and continued recycling of the ball resulted in the desired outcome all be it too often the hard way!! On the odd occasion we did lose the ball it generally resulted from getting stripped in a maul often due to poor body position and disorganised support play, another technique to focus on in the New Year!

Collectively both squads stepped up and implemented our game plan and applied the techniques which we’ve been practicing, both squads were particularly impressive competing for the ball at the breakdown! As a coaching team and parents alike you can’t really ask any more than that!

Fun Christmas training session next week, wear Santa hats and bring some sweets and treats!

Written by Vince Corley
Verified by Alan Staines