EC u16s Festival at Ipswich RFC 07.04.14

Strolling to the warm-up

Hop-a-long

Poised to spring. Note one of many 'borrowed' players for the day.

A very blustery day.  

We had 14, which meant we borrowed a couple of props for each game from other teams. Credit to Wolfie (Bury), who played all our games and has been hopefully recruited permanently for next year. Great to see Simmo on the touchline supporting the team.

Shed showing everyone his ballet moves.

George looking on in horror. 

Ally has a ball painfully extracted.

Callum brings down is prey. Alec tickles him under the arm.

Alex looking to drive Theo into the ground...

Tournament format was each team plays 4 matches of 14 minutes, with the top 4 out of 7 contesting semis and a final. Hadleigh up first. Hadleigh open scoring 5-0, then its the Ali show...great break and try followed by tough conversion. 7-5 Holt final score.

Everyone following the ball intently. Apart from Pottle who is surprised to be on a rugby pitch and has no idea that a ball is about to come his way. Bless.

The Titus show. Ball nicked and he's away.

Beats 'The Hair'. No it's not a girl, they were a touring team.

The break is on. No, they're not tattoos, they were a touring team.

Titus making faces.

More Titus.

A bit more Titus.

Yes, it's Titus.

Chobham (a touring side from Surrey) up next. Chobham scored early in first period under our posts. 7-0. Titus then nicked the ball from the back of their scrum and ran 60 metres to score. 7-5 half time. Second half, we were not looking good, in fact possibly playing some of the worse and most disjointed rugby seen all season. The coaches and parents weren't amused.. that was until Callum ran one in from our 22. 12-5 final score.

George inspects the new hookers tackle.

Three onto one. Good luck Alec.

Ally has his shirt sponsor scratched.

Caz looks for some friends.

Ipswich next. We have already played them twice this season and the boys knew it would be a tough encounter.  0-0 at full time, a harbinger for what was to come! Holt much better in this match, great commitment and effort.

Colchester meet the Holt defence.

Some rugby is happening somewhere in there.

Caz showing how to stand on the wing.

The Ipswich players look on in awe at Holt's flair...

Jacko and Titus take on the whole of Colchester.

The final group match was against Colchester, who had a huge squad and some huge individuals. Holt went down 5-0 but it was a hugely spirited display. Our squad of 14 was getting tired now, but the "good news" was we finished in third place so made it to the semis where our old pals Ipswich lurked, ready to resume hostilities.

Shed looks to take a swipe at the ball.

While the rest of the team get stuck in, Alex pulls out.

Matti saunters into play.

Caz encourages one of Holt's loanees into the fray.

Theo plays pat-a-cake with the opposition.

Another front row line up.

Theo tries to take home a souvenir for the day.

The whole of Holt watch while a little man steals a cool box.

Ally successfully ignores the Tiger making faces at him as he prepares for his kick.

Sudden death and up walks Mr Casual Callum to slot his over.

Holt celebrate the 2 - 1 win in the penalty kick-off.

Jenks is astonished as Beaker from The Muppets tells him about his rugby prowess.

The semi was titanic - I doubt any of the boys will forget it. Again, it was 0-0 after 14 minutes.  So we played extra time.  0-0 after a further 7 minutes.  Changed ends. 0-0 after a further 7 minutes. The lads were out on their feet now. Ipswich had been held up twice over our line. A decision was made to take penalty kicks, 5 lads from each side. Ali kicked our only penalty, going second. The 5th Ipswich kicker evened the score up. Sudden death. Callum was our designated 6th kicker.  He sauntered up and slotted the ball. Mr Casual. You almost suspected he did not want to make it... It was too much for the men from Ipswich. Holt were in the final!

Everybody looks on...

While Colchester get stuck into Alec, Shed warms up in the background.

Captains and Coaches are given a little lecture.

A massive day of rugby comes to an end. Great performances all round.
Everyone was absolutely whacked by the end of the day. A great way to end the season.

 Colchester were up again for us in the final, having won all their games. We borrowed a couple of Walsham lads and gave a really good account of ourselves but in the end Colchester ran out deserved winners 12-0. 

Captain George and runners up egg-cup.

George collected our runners up trophy which will no doubt be displayed prominently in the new club house. This was the last competitive rugby played by our lads as a team as they move up next year to Colts level. It was a great way to bow out.  

At the end of the day...

Mel makes up with the Ref after being told earlier to 'Get back to the bar luvee...'

Holt and some imposters.
Thank you everyone who helped from all the teams competing. 

Bring on the bowling and the Spring Roll Challenge!

Southwold v Holt 23.04.14

 A bleak day dawned. Cold, windy, sombre, overcast.  Much like Rob's mood when it become apparent that only 12 Holt lads had made the effort to travel to the ends of the earth...well, Southwold...on a Sunday morning. Southwold kindly lent us a couple of players taking the number to 14 by kick off. 

The boys taking in every single word of advice.

Holt were playing uphill but with wind behind in the first half.  Ally kicked off and it was clear from the first few minutes that this would be a competitive match. Good commitment by both sides and, with the match being played on a small pitch, there was little room to run around the outside. Holt struck first.  Good strong running from Theo who broke clear and made 30 yards, and Alex Storey, then Jack and Dean clearing out a ruck in text book style and Jenks doing it the hard way by running through 5 Southwold tackles to touch down in the corner.  5-0 Holt. 

The break out.

The flying finish.

Southwold came back from the kick off and forced their way into the Holt 22. Somewhat surprisingly their 10 decided to attempt a drop goal with a clear overlap outside him. The ball wobbled over. 5-3 Holt. It had become clear by now that we had the upper hand in the set scrum, our stalwart front row of Alexander, Dean and George coming up trumps again.  Southwold must have been a good 2 stones a man heavier. Shows that contrary to the impression given, some of the scrum must listen to Carl during training! Or it could be luck.

Crafer, the flanker. I'm sure that's what they said when he had a case of
white line fever breaking from the back of a driving maul 5 metres out,
only to end up 5 metres further back. Of course I could have been mistaken...

Bees round a honey pot.

There followed a scrappy period of play with neither side able to dominate. Some good defence from Caz, stepping in at 9, and Matti in the centre stick in the mind. Eventually, after the fourth offside penalty in as many minutes against Holt, Southwold's enormous prop dropped over the line. 8-5 Southwold, 20 minutes played. Holt caught the restart cleanly, Jack made a break and Alex S powered over to score. An excellent conversion added by Ally meant the score at half time was 12-8 to Holt.

Matti needing some more hair gel.

Alexander about to drive into the referee. Tempting at times...

Southwold kicked off to start the second half. The ball was well fielded by Will, the borrowed 15 and he cleared the ball beyond the half way line. There followed a purple patch for about 10 minutes of vintage Holt attacking rugby with all the boys contributing. Jack broke clear, passed to Alec who was stopped a metre short. Good quick recycling saw Ally score under the posts. 19-8. Immediately from the restart Jack again threw a dummy, hurtled through a gap and Alex S finished off emphatically, scoring his second try of the day. 26-8. It really was a wonderful display by Holt of committed running rugby, with excellent interlinking between backs and forwards and effectively sealed the result.

Snatch and grab.

Jacko hopping to give Southwold time to catch up.

For the final 15 minutes Southwold came back into the match. This was followed by a great pick up and go from Jenks at the base of a dominant scrum, good sniping work from Caz at 9, some strong running from Alexander, Theo, Alex and Matti all impressed. The last play of the game was excellent.  Southwold kicked from their 22, Alec was in perfect position and fielded the ball by the touchline. He set off on a jinking run, making good ground.  The forwards piled in to ensure quick ball and Matti walked in for our final score by the posts.  33-8 final.

Nose plant time.

Storeymaker looking the part. (Please swap letters around for your amusement).

An actual penalty to Holt, captured on film.

It was great to see the response from the Holt lads to the tough loss last week to Walsham. They played the whole game with 14 men and came out fairly comfortably on top. Men of the match for Holt - Caz for his all round game at 9 and Alex S for his 2 tries and strong running. Again, no turd awarded this day. Special thanks to the Southwold lads who played for us - Will at 15 had an excellent match and it was great to see Christian back in the Holt shirt.

Holt men of the match. Alex and Caz. Well done guys, could have gone to a number of players.
No turd awarded this week as everyone put such a great shift in.

An action shot of the author. Great work on this season's match reports,
sometimes even in the same week as the actual match.

Photography thanks to Amelia Ghanbouri and her new assistant Tracey Ghanbouri (when Amelia had lost the use of her hands through frostbite)..

Maybe a selfie is required next game, with the boys in the background as a show of their appreciation for her catching them at their best.