Woodham travel to Bancroft

This weekend the team travelled away to Bancroft to take part in the Essex Festival. There were 4 pools in the Under 8's fixtures and Woodham were drawn against the hosts Bancroft, Ongar, Chingford and Burnham in Pool A. With 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and none for a loss the team with the most points would progress on to the semi finals.

At the coaches briefing it was confirmed that Burnham hadn't arrived and Chingford had pulled out of the festival, leaving just the 3 teams in the pool. It was agreed that rather than a 10 minute match like the other teams, that all 3 teams would play each other twice with a match time of 8 minutes and no half time.

Woodham were first up against Ongar. Both teams played well, gaining tags at a rate of knots and Woodham took the lead with the first try. This was quickly answered by Ongar, and this was to be the way of the scoring for the rest of the match. Woodham scoring and again Ongar coming back at Woodham. Final score was a narrow loss, 4-5 to Ongar.

Woodham were straight back on against the hosts, Bancroft. Again the tagging from both teams was excellent but Woodham were bunching a little during part of the game and this allowed Bancroft to get the ball out to one of their fast players to go round the outside to score. Woodham responded to each try that crossed their line, and at the end of the match Bancroft it was a draw 4 -4, and Woodham picking up their first point of the festival.

After a short break Woodham were back on the field for their second match against Ongar. This was to be a similar affair to the the first game with good tagging from both sides and a ping pong bout of tries from both teams. Final score was 4 -6 to Ongar.

The last match Woodham played against the host side for the second time. Both sides tagging well and Woodham passing the ball out to free players allowed them to break free on a number of occasions. Tries came quickly from both sides, but the final score mirrored the first game with a draw at 4 - 4.

Final scores for the pool were Bancroft 6 points, Ongar 4 points and Woodham 2 points, meaning the hosts went through to the next round. The team played well on the day and their were some great team tries and everyone enjoyed the day of Rugby.

This weeks Team were Callum, Euan, Grace, Henry, Jasmine, Noah, Rory, Quinn and Thomas. Next week the team are at home against Stanford.