OLD PATS U16 TRIES – 3

OLD PATS U16 CONVERSIONS – 1

OLD PATS U16 PENALTIES 0

MALVERN TRIES – 3

MALVERN CONVERSIONS 1

MALVERN PENALTIES 1

The U16’s took on Malvern today in an extremely even contest that went down to the wire.

A grey and breezy day at the Pats but, thankfully, a firm and dry-ish pitch saw an excitingly close contest. We’d not matched up against Malvern before in this age group and they had some large and powerful looking forwards. We’d done well against a big pack last week though by moving the ball around and that would be the plan again.

Captain Will chose to play uphill first half and from the long kick we attempted to run it out of defence near our own line. That may have been slightly over-ambitious as we were hauled down and turned over. Their large number 8 charged over and we were behind before we’d really woken up.

That early set back galvanised our effort, however, and we started to make some progress. Initially Malvern held us out with some good tackling and a couple of decent chances went begging. Not from lack of effort or endeavour. Will was carrying with intensity and was the recipient of a huge collision with their solid prop . Credit to the durability of both that they got up and carried on.

From a tap penalty, we shifted the ball wide of the big lads lined up against us and, this time, Will got across the line for the equalising score. 5-5 at half time.

With the wind and slope in our favour in the second period, we had high hopes of a third successive victory. Peter C at fly half was kicking us deep into their territory and our backs were making good ground moving the ball at pace. Bertie was doing his usual- fierce tackling and a tenacious presence at the breakdown turning over ball for us. It looked as though we were getting on top.

Unfortunately, we knocked on and one of their strong carriers got his hands on the ball. He made good ground, evading several would -be tacklers and re-established Malvern’s lead.

We have something to work on there as, strong as he was, we really should have been able to haul him down.

We have strong carriers of our own though and Will, Saxon, Chris and James all took the fight to the opposition. Our off-loading was also working well and eventually, Monty found a yard of space to escape the defence. Converting his own try brought the scores back level and a similar passage of play with hard running and good passing out of the tackle saw

Pete S crash over. The wind dragged the kick just past the post but we lead 17-12 with not long left.

Sadly, our defence was not quite resolute enough as the boys tired towards the end of a hard match and we dropped off a couple of tackles allowing Malvern to score again. The scores were level with the kick to come. The clock was in the red but there’s always time for the conversion.

The chance to win it at the death was there but, fortunately for us, their kicker’s radar was wonky on this occasion. The final whistle sounded with the scores even.

A draw seemed about fair after a close and competitive contest. Both teams could have won it. Neither could quite get across the line

Allez les Pats!