Stowe Festival
‘It’s not the team with the best players that wins, it’s the players with the best team’ Allard de Jong U11A The unequivocal advantage of tournaments like the one organised by Stowe School is minutes on the pitch against a variety of opposition. Wednesday saw the Under 11As embrace this opportunity wholeheartedly. A pair of wins over Oratory and Winchester House showed great intent at the breakdown, committed tackling, and clinical finishing. Swanborne House offered a tougher test, but when going behind twice, St Hugh’s fought back to level, and but for a blade of grass in the corner at the death, may well have sneaked a win. A draw was fair. Deep digging for the character to come back was a highlight. Beachborough handed out a lesson to us a week before, and the bruises of that loss endured. In the end, St Hugh’s went toe to toe for 7 minutes before some fatigue set in, and Beachborough snuck in 2 late tries. It is testament to our performance that the Beachborough coach thanked us for their best game this season. Belief is all that was lacking; hopefully something we can gain before our next meeting with our current nemesis after half-term. A crushing victory was meted out on Ashfold for our final game giving us stats of played 5, won 3, drawn 1, lost 1, points for 65, points against 40. This squad work hard, learn fast, and are starting to gel. Let’s hope that the trajectory remains on this upward curve for the rest of the season. U10A The indicator of success in festivals such as these are whether the team grows throughout the afternoon, and these boys did just that. There were too many positives to mention, but most notably our ball retention and rucking was fantastic. Every one of the team deserves a special mention as they bonded determination and intelligence in all performances. The stand out player on the day was Kit C who was playing at another level; nobody went past him, and every time he received the ball he scored. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon!
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