Old Cats U14 vs Reeds

Old Cats Under 14 team went onto the road and suffered their first defeat of the season to Reeds 34-17, but showed a level of braveness and determination which was probably their best so far.

The script did not start well, with some key players who could not attend the fixture. However Old Cats still manage to field a decent squad with 3 subs, (what a difference a couple of years make)!

Kick off and it certainly was not free flowing rugby which we had been treated with over the last couple of games. There was handling errors all over from both teams – must be too much time on the Xbox over the school holidays! Restarts and our scrums which were previously solid could not get to grips with the big pack of Reeds, our timing on our shove was off allowing Reeds more often than not to take the first step and get the upper hand. It was all about defence and some of the boys were putting in big tackles on the Reeds lads, however eventually the Reeds started to capitalise and in came three unanswered tries in the first half leading to a 17-0 deficit.

The Old Cats team heads never went down. Watching from the side lines it was like seeing a restoration job on a classic car. There were glimpses of magic where the old car would come to life purring engine, moving the ball around, stretching the opposition, only for the sweet noise of the V15 engine to be snuffled out by a handling error. All we needed was a spark of magic by someone to get the team going again. We needed someone with a set of jump leads to get us up and running; and that person was Chris. He was always busy in the wings with superb tackling in the first half, but his alertness with a great interception pass lead to our first score on the sheet. Now the Old Cats which we have grown to know this season came into life. The boys applied the pressure in all the right areas. Both teams set up a battle, exchanging tackles, upping the intensity and forcing the errors on each other. Reeds did answer with a further 3 tries (a couple of them were soft tries from Old Cats view), but in came Harrison & Charlie with their tries to finish off the second half with a score line of 17-17; making the full time score 34-17.

In some respects it was a frustrating match as we could all see the talent which was on the edge of coming through in the first half, but not quite there. In other aspects it was a truly heartening performance with the score line of 17 – 0 down, the boys never gave up and pulled out a second half effort and battled their way back from the depths of abyss.

Some people to pull out for exceptional performances:
Will – ace tackling.
Leo – again tackles on fire
James – put into the position of hooker; making an excellent job and getting stuck in all over the field.

Man of the Match performance has to go to Chris, with his fearless tackles and individual brilliance that brought the team into life with his ‘jump leads’!

Tries: Chris; Harrison; Charlie
Conversion: x 1 Ross