Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrhhh...was the battle cry!

A wet, gloomy Sunday was the setting for Olneys visit to the fortress. As always the vistors provided a strong, well coached squad big enough to allow for three games to be played at the same time. This was welcomed by all who braved the constant drizzle, to keep the boys moving and warm.

Olney are a good match for the squad and are always welcomed as they provide all of our players the chance to play against a team of similar level. With mixed ability sides, we played a "round robin" format which worked well. The ground was soft and muddy so at times it was difficult to see which team a player was part of as they were covered head to toe, the flip side was there was no hiding for those not completing tackles as they stood there, spotless saying "I did try" :-)

As always a few knocks were taken, but nobody stayed out for long, before getting back on the pitch and playing hard for their club.

With all the boys playing so well it was a challenge for the Coaches to single any out, but James did mention Heath McGregor, Sam Robinson, and Luke Nicholls at the end of the morning as putting in some excellent efforts. I would add to that Ethan Swallows work rate in defence.

Watching the boys play as we move through the season is great for the coaches as we are starting to see flickers of briliance when the boys play for each other, rather than as an individual. We have some strong capable players, but the boys are working out that one person cant do this alone all the time, we saw a lovely offload from Malachy Collins, who could have scored, but Archie Edwards was on his wing and a quick pass down the line put Archie comfortably over. This shows maturity on the pitch which is a great foundation for us to build on.

One player was identified (and heard across the town I think) from the moment we started. He worked hard the whole time on the pitch, making the ref sound like some frustrated roadie at a sound check. Every time he was tackled, the ref would call "one, two" then he'd offload from the tackle, loop to take the next pass, tackle, "one, two" offload!!! I have often said to this player, "show me your war face!" but this week we heard his battle cry as he clutched the ball tight, ran straight, screaming like a banshee through 5 of the 7 on the opposite team and put the ball down with the try of the day. He turned to jog back with a massive muddy grin on his face. Well done to Jonas Hefford, our player of the week.