Today we took the Under 9s hoards on the short jaunt up the A449 to local rivals Stourbridge. A town famous for its ring road and Glass works. Both sets of coaches decided to truly test the player’s defensive skills by playing both games on half the size of a normal pitch. With this in mind we decided to use different tactics today focused on tackling and driving players backwards, thus was born the new warm up…………………………………………………..

We set the player’s a challenge of each one putting in at least three tackles during each game, they did this magnificently well, a huge improvement from the past few weeks.

Cheetahs
This week the Cheetahs roared into life with more fantastic attacking play and much improved tackling display in defence.

Having adjusted well this season to the new ways of keeping the ball alive in attack (pop-pass / present & pass) the focus is now switching to defence and TACKLING, whilst making this fun.

In their first game the Cheetahs were a bit slow to get going, especially in defence but gradually started to put together some good runs & offloads to score several tries. In this game they developed their own way of splintering the Stourbridge defence using a form of rolling maul where one player after another took the ball from a held team-mate and then drove forward into the opposition line. Eventually this created a window of opportunity for McKenzie to blast across the try-line to score (I think this was his first try for the club, and it was clear he was really enjoying this physical approach).

Another great moment came after good runs from Finley, Ethan & Luis, combined with good off-loading in the tackle, created the chance for Henry to tumbler over the try-line by diving between the legs of an opposition player to place the ball down.

It was also very pleasing to see Chris making a good contribution by passing well from scrum-half and making some good ground when being given the chance to run from re-starts, whilst Josh showed a good turn of speed and agility to beat several opponents each time he got the ball.

There was some strong tackling from Luke and Tom put in big hits time and again to smash opponents to the ground.

The Cheetahs player of the week was Mckenzie for his storming runs and passing out of the tackle which made him a real attacking force and resulted in 2 well deserved tries.

So the challenge now for all the Cheetahs is for each of you to raise our tackling to the standard of your attacking play so we become a real force to be reckoned with.

Tigers
The Tigers finally awoke from the sleepiness of the last few weeks and used at least one if their claws today. We spent the day in the leafy side of Stourbridge.

It was transparent from the start that the Stourbridge coaches and players were a great bunch. They shared our philosophy of having mixed teams and playing for fun.

The themes for today were, enjoyment, respect and TACKLING!

Over the last few weeks all three teams have been bedding in a new system. This includes one fly half playing whole matches in that position to try and get more passing and running. It has been a slow start but we saw this working for the first time in parts today. Still more practice needed on that one.

Match one.

The first match saw the tigers make a sluggish start, we were still blowing off the shards of apathy from the mental stains of the Bridgnorth match. But as the game got going we saw a Smashing try from George. Ripping the ball from a maul he ran in a good 15 metres to score.

We then saw the leaden feet disappear and really got going. Lovely running from Salvador and Sabian coupled with further good tackling from Matty and George saw us ending the half much better. Matty played this match as Fly Half and towards the end we really saw him bringing others into the play more.

The second half was a far more effective team performance we saw some lovely running from Ethan who always goes past ( or through!) at least one player. Then good combinations from Greg and Jacob saw Nico get his first run of the match. The tackling in the second half was almost bullet proof

Match 2

This saw the Tigers really wake up. Will took to this match particularly well with 2-3 really good runs in the loose, but the most impressive thing was to see George passing the ball to players in better positions. This earned him a deserved player of the week trophy. Particular high lights included a switch move and the new exciting move called double crash!! Watch out for that one in future weeks!!!

As we progress we are looking for ways to make sure that the new formation brings the whole team into the game. But bit by bit it is coming together. This match saw Joe Rumley get his first proper tackle for several weeks well done Joe

So to the tackling: smashing stuff lads each week one or two more players get it and today every player went into contact at one time or another which is what we asked of them. So keep it up and soon we will all be young. My personal favourite defensive moment came right on our own try line when Ethan "the power" held up a really powerful Stourbridge player and then we help pushed him back away from the line. Well done lads. A great day and a really good improvement.

Lions
Opting to get some extra training to polish our skills before our first game I spent most of the time being told off for forgetting our resident lady in the team was there, so due to my goldfish like memory she had renamed herself Bob for everything relating to rugby! Showing a few ‘dark arts’ of tackling to the players and having them live tackling on each other we were ready for our first game until Will got sucker punched by a ghost and had a nose bleed!

Game 1
This was probably the best game of rugby I have seen all year! Both sides defending like troopers on the smaller pitches, it was tit for tat on the try front with Stourbridge scoring then us, then Stourbridge, but the linesman disallowed it for foot in touch (very commendable as it was his grandson who scored). During this game all players put huge amount of efforts in with Rory and Jake making darting runs forward drawing in the Stourbridge defence to allow the other players to go forward. Callum, Tafty and JJ played their usual in your face style of rugby, Dom regained his tackling form from a few weeks ago and Will and Bob cracking the Stourbridge line with 3 – 4 players hung off them, and then there was Sam, he manages to bamboozle teams, they aren’t sure what to do with him until he smashes one of them with a tackle! I think this game ended in a draw but I can’t remember it was too entertaining to watch!

Game 2
This game was much a mirror image of the first, Stourbridge scored a few breakaway tries but we were the better side keeping the ball alive, at one point on the sixth tackle we made around 10 passes before the 7th tackle was made, fantastic off loading and running lines. Will steamrollered into his school pals with an almighty roar, Bob made her ‘trademark’ runs forward with players hung off her, Dom made the cover tackle of the day on their biggest player, Sam, Rory and Jake drove players backwards as secondary tacklers, JJ and Tafty ever probed the Stourbridge defence keeping them guessing which way they were going to run, and Callum finally lived up to his own hype and put a huge tackle in on a Stourbridge player which made even my ribs twinge!

All in all a fantastic morning of rugby for the Lions, with every player stepping up to the line drawn in the sand and doing all what was asked of them. Looking forward to Bromyard next week, it’s going to be cracking

The morning ended in good fashion into the group chat and awards. It was here that Matt our head coach shattered my (Si) understanding around St Nic. I cried all the way home (sorry Si but most of our kids told me last year who played Santa at the club and I didn’t want to bear the pain on my own anymore )..... Next week you can read all about the special report on the Easter Bunny: fact or fiction the unbelievable truth revealed! (Easter bunny is real haven’t you seen Rise of the Guardians a fantastic film where Santa has awesome Tattoos! (I don’t get royalties from plugging the film))

Kidderminster Carolians RFC

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