Widnes vs Manchester under 9's

There was definitely a nip in the air on Sunday, the route out on the M56 is usually a bike trip to Snowdon, or a beach trip to Abersoch, but this time we turned off early and headed up towards Widnes, with a fine rain hitting the windscreen Brandon was complaining about the wipers being on intermittent, but I was thinking about the first competitive game of contact. I’d put ‘Heath Road’ into the TomTom, and it took us to some windswept street, no Rugby Club here!! We spotted a walker with some hound on a leash and wound the window down, ‘can you point us in the direction of Widnes rugby club?’ we asked. ‘No’ was his terse reply! Maybe a sign of things to come! We drove on and found the correct Heath Road, bingo!!

The lads all looked great in their new kit, I could swear they had all grown since the last training game, maybe it was the shirts. After a brief warm up session Widnes appeared ready for kick off. Widnes are the team we beat last season, memorably in a semi final if my memory serves me right, but this time things looked a little different. They’d all rocked up with ‘sharks teeth’ gum shields and head guards, some even with ‘American football style shoulder pads and the three biggest units you ever saw trundling through the mid field. I’m certain the first game was a shock, we went down 4 nil, and couldn’t cope with their direct running, tackling and size. Having said that there were some encouraging signs, the boys weren’t backing down, and were showing some real courage around the contact areas, Travis pulled of a try saving tackle, Joe was putting him self about and Robbie was taking on all comers with the look of someone who was really enjoying himself.
Game two started and finished with the same score line, but this isn’t telling the whole story. We were beginning to get to grips with the physicality, and our runners were getting on the ball a little more. Oliver Hill made some great breaks, as did Brandon, just a little more thought and we would have been on the score sheet The tackling was improving, but again we seemed to be running into their three big lads, and getting sucked into the middle of the pitch.
We went down again in game three but this time the score line was more even, Widnes went over twice, as we fell victim to their size, but we had plenty of the ball and the courage the boys showed was outstanding. At the end Joe went over the line to score a well deserved try, to end the match at 2 1, with man of the match going to Robbie.

So, in short some outstanding performances and courage not reflected in the scores, that bodes well for the future, one or two minor tweaks from the coaches and I’m sure we will gradually get up to the level of some of last years performances. Roll on next Sunday!