Hawcoat Storm - Est: 2008

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A massive thank you to Jai Cooper who makes these reports possible by collecting the stats while watching her boys.

8s
An 8-6 victory against Hindpool was the ideal start for our young chargers. The fast paced approach to festival games suits the younger end as they have no time to think (worry) and play on small pitches (so they can’t get out of the way!) We did everything right from the whistle against an evenly matched Hindpool side. Ethan once more featuring on the score sheet with an impressive 4 which were complimented by Pos who opened his account with 2 and Spencer and LJ with 1 each making up the 8. The wonderful thing about 8s rugby is that everyone has a chance to shine around their strengths and they all did that today. The second game was for our younger players who hastily made up a 7s team. Game time is invaluable and I had no thoughts other than to get our smaller kids some serious pitch experience. To then run a good Walney team to within one try is very impressive. 2 for Adam, 2 for Ethan, 2 for Coops and 1 for Spencer gave us the 7 we finished with. Following this game we went up against a bigger Walney under 8s and despite leaking 12 we managed a respectable 6 in response. Tries for Spencer, 4 for Ethan and 1 for Steph were not enough to finish on a high. Where we were exposed was in the defensive side of our game. LJ sets the standard here and there is no quick fix unfortunately. It does hurt a little and it is scary but it’s a self confidence thing and down to each player to challenge him/herself to put the shoulder in and take the runner to the ground. There is a switch in the brain somewhere that flicks over at some point in a player’s development – I’ve yet to isolate it but LJ has! A massive improvement from Will and Morgan in this department shows players gaining in confidence and skills every game. We’ll continue to work on this and it will improve over time. A very successful day at the office for our 8s who all got a well deserved medal for their efforts.

10s
An opening fixture against Dalton followed by Walney is never a scenario you’d want. Our boys started against a very good Dalton side by moving off the line together consistently (thought I was bloody seeing things) and completing tackle after tackle to thwart every set of 6 Dalton threw at us. In reply we moved the ball well though the team following the massive drives from Wazza, Elliot, Chaz and Jacob and went in 1-0 up at the break thanks to a Matty Brown bolt for the corner. The second half was more of the same with some excellent individual tackling from Kian and Ollie and some mazy runs from Coops and Will allowing Lewis to scoot for the second and Elliot to cross the whitewash yet again to give us a 3 try advantage. I then asked the boys to keep Dalton to nil for the remainder of the game and they did this with some style. Petch, Singo, Jess, Jonah, Rory, Conal, Nicky and Seth floating in and out to spell off their team mates and to complete a comprehensively good performance from everybody. A very tired 11 then took to the pitch to face what is an excellent Walney squad. Petch scooting to open the account followed by a brilliant phase of play that lead to Will scoring a beauty. Unfortunately we let in 4 Walney tries as we continue to demonstrate that we need to work on our 1 on 1 tackling. Now we’re bigger and faster waving our arms around at the opposition just won’t do. Much the same as the 8s we need to continually challenge ourselves in these situations. Matty pulled off two try savers with a little bottle and a lot of technique Wazza and Elliott snuffed out drive after drive from their opposite numbers and Will worked tirelessly at marker throughout – we all need to follow these examples for the duration of our games. Medals for the team’s brave efforts were just reward for a great morning’s work.

Just for the record........ team selection is down to the coaching team. We have consistently made our selection procedures public and involved everyone in the decisions we have made in our approach this. The hardest thing in the world is to ensure equal time on the pitch for all. Thank you all again for your understanding here, while it’s still about the kids playing for fun let’s all try and keep it that way.

I’m assuming that we will be a few short next week due to the Wembley thing. Could you please let me know your availability for the CoOp festival at Askam next week (assuming it’s still on as other teams will no doubt have the same issues). The CoOp festival is the same format as today with certificates for the kids at the end. I have no idea who we are playing but will confirm as I get the fixture list.

MB