Mar 04 - Stevenage(A)+W Nfk (A)

W 29 - 19 + L 48 -10 Rep's Attached

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U13A Team – Stevenage 19, Wymondham 29

On a miserably cold and wet Sunday morning the Wymondham team set off to deepest Hertfordshire to play against Stevenage – a team that had been researched as to be worthy of such a journey.  The rain was unrelenting and this made for difficult conditions underfoot and a very slippery ball for both teams to handle.  An interesting game of rugby was about to follow!

The Stevenage side had some big forwards and this gave a clue as to the sort a game they were about to play – strong tackling, short chip and runs and driving forward with the ball in hand.  Wymondham played hard with determination and resolve.  Indeed, much of the game was spent at the scrummage, rucks and at the breakdown with a powerful Stevenage team continually testing the Wymondham defence.  The Wymondham forwards had another good day winning most srummages with some excellent work from an increasingly robust pack.  Hooking from both Drew Anderson and Henry Burton was superb with the ball repeatedly won for Will Findlay to move it out to the backs.  Strong tackles and rucks enabled Wymondham to defend several attempts from a spirited Stevenage side to penetrate the Wymondham lines and score a try.

The challenge for Wymondham in this game seemed to be getting the ball out to the backs as the time to handle the ball after the breakdown was limited by the opposition closing down space at a truly phenomenal speed!  Nevertheless, once Wymondham had the ball in hand (and it was slippery!) our big centres and fast wingers did their job.  Excellent breaks from Lewis Jennings, Daniel Wood and Owen Sharpe secured tries as did a slick passage of play between Owen Sharpe, Dominic Smith and Lewis Jennings demonstrating some text-book support play.  Notwithstanding a slippery rugby ball, kicking and chasing down could have been better and no doubt these will be areas of focus for future training sessions.

This was another tough game of rugby for the Wymondham team but they dug deep and prevailed against a strong opposition playing at their home ground.  Five tries were scored in total of which two were converted.  Well done boys!!

Tries:  Owen Sharpe (1), Lewis Jennings (2), Daniel Wood (1) & Dominic Smith (1)

Conversions:  Joe Milligan (2)

Man of the Match:  Dominic Smith

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West Norfolk 48   - Wymondham Dev. Squad  10

With the rain tipping down and a stiff breeze coming in off The Wash this was always going to be a difficult fixture, but with players unavailable with other commitments and some late call offs from due to illness, the Development squad only had 10 players travel to West Norfolk to make a competitive fixture almost impossible.

The West squad has increased in quality and numbers and they kindly lent us 5 players at flanker, centre and winger.

Wymondham started well and spent the first 7 minutes camped in the West half but even with Jordon making good tackles at full back we  could stop West’s strong runners and were 29-0 down by half time.

A few minutes into the second half Casey made a strong run with several trade mark hand offs to go over for our first score. From the restart we pressured again and gained a penalty 10 m out from an infringement at the ruck.  A quick tap and go saw Casey crash over for our second score.

Despite continued strong tackling from Jordon again and again, Wymondham failed to show enough determination at the breakdown and too many missed tackles, going in too high, resulted in the West forwards breaking through to score three more tries to finish 48-10.

Some things to work on during training this week.

Tries: Casey (2)