EG U14
Matches
Sun 25 Feb 2018
EAST GRINSTEAD RFC
EG U14
19
5
Chichester
U14s defeat Chichester to go to 16 games unbeaten

U14s defeat Chichester to go to 16 games unbeaten

Simon Luxton25 Feb 2018 - 20:53
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https://www.egrfc.com/teams/14

Powerful team performance defeats a strong Chichester side

The first game of Phase 2 of this season’s waterfall structure matched East Grinstead U14s with Chichester, a side we hadn’t played since the mini-festivals, a few years ago.

This provided a great opportunity to focus 100% on ourselves, what we do well and what we needed to really work on. There was no need for a game-plan to counter the opposition’s strengths because we didn’t know what they were!

Colm Geraghty stepped up during the pre-match huddle and provided a potent Captain’s team talk putting some fire in the bellies of the forwards.

Chichester kicked off and pushed the Gs back into our 22, immediately putting us under pressure. Strong tackles were needed and unfortunately Jonny Smith came off worst in a collision with a Chichester forward and succumbed to a shoulder injury which ended his match in the first minute. Cameron Beeney came on as replacement.

Our defence was sound and we worked our way up the pitch gaining territory bit by bit. Some excellent passing led to the opening try by Kris Mildner in the top corner and Colm neatly slotted over the conversion for 7-0.

Chichester roused themselves to come back firing and they prodded and probed at our defence before finding a weakness to dive over from close range. The conversion was missed, 7-5.

Some formidable running from Jacob James gained territory and put the Chichester side under pressure which led to a penalty conceded about 10 metres from their try line. Decision making is critical at these times, and Colm made the right call to pop the ball to Cameron Beeney who smashed his way through the line of defence for our second try. Colm slotted over the conversion for 14-5.

The half time talk was about committing more players to the breakdown, securing possession and keeping the intensity level high.
In the early minutes, Eoin O’Donoghue ran a lovely outside break, chipped ahead and reached the ball first. A nice fly-hack forward put the bounce in the lap of the rugby gods who looked upon us favourably as it popped up perfectly for Kris to take without breaking stride and he ran in our 3rd try (and his 2nd) of the match. Conversion missed, 19-5.

Our game was built around strong, powerful runs and Jack Morrison, Owen Peel and Elliott Vincent led the way throughout the second half.

What was especially pleasing was our game management as we saw out the final 10 minutes of the game, a calm Toby Pepler coming on at full-back to cleanly field Chichester’s kicks and running them back for good yards, the backs choosing to use Toby Hawes’s great pace to run out of deep, and excellent decision making to kick penalties to touch so we were never really under pressure.

This was potentially the U14’s most mature, controlled performance so far and it was a real credit to the boys.

Man of the Match: Colm Geraghty for leading from the front with strong tackles and adding a touch of class to proceedings.

Match details

Match date

Sun 25 Feb 2018

Kickoff

12:00

Meet time

10:45

Instructions

MOM - Colm Geraghty
Team overview
Further reading

Team Sponsors

Sponsor - Leggat Plant Ltd
Club Sponsor - Kingscote Paving
Sponsor - Prolojik Ltd
Sponsor - Champain Financial Services Ltd
Shirt Sponsor - Elite Physical Rehab
Shirt Sponsor - SPW Property Services