Marlow U16's (Away)

Marlow U16's 11 vs. Chinnor U16's 7
Sunday 23rd September 2007
A Game of Three Halves Brian.

Promises, promises - Chinnor U16s opened the new season with a promising warm up game against Marlow, the most feared team in the area.  After a gruelling pre-season campaign it was a relief to play some real rugby and encouraging to see a range of new team combinations in full flight.  Predictably, there were unforced errors and lapses in concentration, but this genuinely was a promising start and Chinnor’s summer recruits featured throughout.

In a tight first ‘half’ Marlow took the lead with an unopposed run from the back of a lineout.  (This was slightly less promising.)  In the second ‘half’ they added a penalty to stretch their lead, but Chinnor were always in the game.  Strong tackling, with Luke Gardiner at the fore, kept the fancied Marlow three quarters bottled up and storming drives from Tom Webb, George White and Lewis Bradbrook-Taylor stirred the blood as Chinnor gradually took control.  In the third ‘half’ Elliott Bevan pounced on loose lineout ball before the pack sucked in the defence and the ball sailed along the back line for Adam Crisp to open his new account.  Jack Green belted the conversion from out wide.  Chinnor might have gone on to press home their advantage, but Marlow held on to win 11-7.

Man of the match?  There were several contenders including Jack Green, Elliott Bevan (who broke his wrist in the cause), Ollie Jackson, Tom Green and Seb Johnson, but none was fault-free so the award stays in the cabinet this week.

The coaches will be very encouraged by this display, although there is much to work on – especially the lineouts where lifting presents a new challenge, scrums – where Andy Berry played his first match at prop, and hitting the rucks quickly - which will no doubt be the focus of coming training sessions.  The coaches most difficult challenge this season may be selection; the surfeit of choice in a number of positions will see top-notch guys on the bench more often than they’d like. 

C’est la vie!  But very promising Brian.