MHRUFC U11s 3 Feb 2013

Sunday 3rd Feb 2013

A cold and brutal wind blew across the top pitches at Market Harborough as the Under 11's turned out to face Long Buckby and Sutton Colefield in a Tri-Way. With the recent poor weather conditions the boys haven't been playing much rugby of late, so no-one was expecting anything stylish, how wrong can you be?

Sutton Colefield opened proceedings with a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Long Buckby, and now turned to face the MH A squad. Sutton kicked off and were straight away under pressure from a clearly hungry MH team. Within the first minute Sutton were pinned on their own try line as as the pressure was piled on, a loose ball spilled over the try line and with no Sutton player seemingly prepared to touch it down for safety Ollie Hoare pounced and put the home team 1-0 ahead. This opening was sign of things to come. Sutton could barely organise themselves as the MH forwards pounded through time and again. Charlie Power constantly at the head of the pack driving through the opposition with excellent support play from Tom Wainwright, Theo Barre and Ollie Hoare. Not to be left out hooker William Henderson broke through and helped himself to a try making it 2-0. Power took a head injury and had to come off and was replaced by Kai LeMar leaving the MH forwards a little light against their opposition.Still try as they might Sutton could make no impression on the MH team, at every breakdown Scrum Half Danny Hands was always on them before they could get the ball away, closely followed by the forwards. A breakaway run by winger Jack Rowlatt had Sutton scrambling for their own try-line, and tackled just short of glory Fullback Josh Ford was on hand to pick up and complete the mission putting MH 3-0 up at halftime.
Early in the second half LeMar proved his worth with opportunistic scramble over the line for Harborough's 4th. Replacement Scrum Half Fabian Boddy continued the tone set by Hands and harassed and bothered the Sutton forwards. Sutton worked hard and that effort finally paying off for them with a messy but much needed try. MH barely seemed to notice and despite some clumsy ball handling earlier in the game Centre Will Dawson crashed through to put MH 5-1 up. The support play from the backs was always there Will House always a steadying influence and Doug Ralston in particular who seemed to be everywhere all of the time tackling and moving the ball ever onwards. LeMar put in a storming try just ahead of full-time Harborough taking the game 6-1

Harborough after a brief break took to the pitch again, this time to face the stronger looking Long Buckby team. Buckby buoyed by their early win against Sutton and much rested whilst Harborough were playing, came out fighting. Sterling cover work by Alex Nicholson and Jack Rowlatt kept Buckby from swinging wide, but it was a constant threat and no-one could take a breather.Both teams fought hard to take the upper hand. Matthew Brucciani made some swift breaks and Theo Barre pounded away in the rucks but neither team could find the opening they were looking for. At half time it was still 0-0
A head bandaged Power returned to the forwards at half time along with Hands as Scrum Half, perhaps this change in dynamic made the difference, who knows, but certainly things started to look a little more promising. It wasn't until the closing two minutes that Harborough really started to make the pressure count. Camped permanently near the Buckby try-line time after time Harborough tried to get across the final yard. It took a tremendous effort from Ford to finally throw himself over to score the one and only try of the game, just ahead of the final whistle.

If we ever doubted that the lads were up to such a performance after a long lay off then they surely proved us wrong. The Under 11's gave us a performance to be proud of, Charlie Power taking man of the match for his unrelenting presence among the forwards.

Great rugby, great performance. Well done boys.­