U10's win County Cup

Market Harborough 1 and 2 had both qualified for the cup finals from the preliminary group stages and Harborough 2 were up first.
Starting uphill in the first half, Harborough 2 put up a valiant fight against an impressive Ashby side. Ashby used gravity to take a first half lead with a fine try in the corner.
Despite strong second half pressure, Harborough 2 were unable to breach their defences and went out of the cup with this 1:0 loss. This then placed them in the Bowl competition, where they faced Market Bosworth.
In this match, they were under pressure for much of the first half but in the second looked like a different team and penned their opponents back, never looking likely to concede. Unfortunately, nor did Bosworth and the game finished 0:0.
It all went down to the toss of a coin and in a repeat of the fate of the MH1 side in the Prima Bowl semi final, they lost the toss and went out of the competition in the cruelest of fashions. They showed great dignity in defeat, and with Bosworth going on to draw the final and share the trophy with Oadby Wiggs, MH2 could morally claim to have done so too, although records won't reflect that.

MH1 started well against Oakham and were exerting lots of pressure, keeping Oakham largely in their own half. At the scrum however, Oakham were hooking well and repeatedly came away with the ball, so Harborough were unable to turn the pressure into points. That didn't last however and following a succesful scrum, the ball came out to George Hooper who feigned to pass but saw the gap and sprinted to the corner to score. Half time score was 1:0.
The second half saw much of the same and Harborough's defence looked unlikely to concede. Tyler Smith was a boy possessed in this match and with fantastic pace and determination, he scored a great try for Harborough's second to seal the win. The reward was a cup semi-final against Syston.
Harborough started this game where they left off and dominated their opponents. The scrum was fairing better and playing scrum half Will Salvesen darted through to score in the corner for the crucial first try. Syston cam back strongly, but Smith turned defence into attack and reclaimed the ball. The ball came out to Thomas Kemp on the right wing, whose path initially looked blocked. He turned infield and with blistering acceleration and pace left his opponents' defence in tatters as he sprinted to the opposite corner to score.
Despite having the downhill pitch with them in the second half, it remained an uphill battle for Syston. Henry Joule, Billy Stamp-Ellam and Smith combined well to free Hooper to add his second of the day in the corner and seal a 3:0 win.
With little time for a break, Ashby, who had earlier knocked out MH2, were the cup final opponents. It was time for revenge.
This was a tighter game, with Ashby having a couple of particularly good players amongst their strong squad. Harborough were however on top and again the impressive Smith went on a strong mazey run. Despite a high tackle, he made it over the line. There was a tense moment whilst the referee called all the players in to warn them about the height of tackles, but then the whistle was blown and the try awarded, with the whistle largely drowned out by the noise of the leaping Dave Stamp who had gone for a closer look! 1:0 to MH.
In the second half again Harborough looked the more likely team to score and were never in danger of conceding ... easy to say now but at the time the narrow margin made watching the game tense for the big group of Harborough supporters. The final whistle eventually blew however and Market Harborough Under 10's were county champions!

With not a single try conceded throughput the competition, including the preliminary rounds, they were worthy champions, made all the more impressive by the fact they had not played as a team together since the last round in February. All other games for the age group outside this competition featured the mixed ability squads that these players were all plucked from to represent their age group and it is credit to the strength in depth of this group of kids. Well done to all the U10's for a great season of rugby, capped with this fine win that they should all be proud of.