P4 with Ayr and West

We had a squad of six travel up to Milngavie on a cold and frosty Sunday morning, to face several teams from our hosts West of Scotland and our local neighbours, Ayr once again. The squad consisted of Aron, Ben, Cameron, Dylan, Jack D and Lachlan with both West and Ayr having much larger squads capable of fielding more than one team including subs, so between the slippy, frosty 4G surface, cold chill and deficit in numbers, the boys were going to have to “go deep” once again, so guess what they did....?
As a side note, our “development team” at the club, lead by Harry, is working with the local schools at P4 level just now, introducing rugby to the pupils and hopefully enticing and encouraging a few more players to bolster our squad numbers. Equally, any of the boys friends/relatives who may express an interest, please do suggest them to “come along and give it a try” ?
Over the course of the morning, the boys played a total of 4 x 10 minute games, 3 against West and 1 against Ayr, playing West, Ayr, West and West again.
The first West game saw the boys pull out a convincing win of 11-6 with tries from Lachlan (2), Ben (6), Dylan (2) and one other whom we missed in the excitement, so who’s claiming this one???
Our 2nd fixture was one of the other Ayrshire visiting teamsfrom Ayr, this fixture saw us winning 8-4 with tries from Ben (6) and Lachlan (2).
Our 3rd game was a much tighter affair with West, narrowly losing 5-6 with tries from Ben (3) and Lachlan (2).
Our final fixture saw us increase the team sizes so West kindly “borrowed” us 2 players, Cory and Rory, a double act in name and nature as they contributed to 4 tries in our 8 against West’s 3, the ‘nock scorers being Ben, Lachlan (2) and Aron.
So overall, across 4 games, we cumulatively scored 32-20 so a decent margin overall and testament to just how committed these lads are, they should really feel proud of what they are achieving this season, the coaching team certainly are #P4Pride
In general, whilst the very large pitch encouraged a “try-fest” allowing the speedy jinksters to run riot, we actually weren’t playing at the same standard we had done even the previous weekend at home. Perhaps the slippy and cold nature of it just didn’t allow the boys to be at their sharpest but our previous trademark “rucking strength” just wasn’t on display, often we simply weren’t rucking to contest and steal or even protect our “Attacker”, the “Bullet, Clear-Out, Decider” of our ABCD’s often were absent.
When in possession, our attacking play was very good, witnessing some decent powerful carries from the likes of Aron and Lachlan, who defied all odds and effectively “ploughed a furrow” to the try line on one occasion. Some great offloads were being made to the support players like Jack, Dylan and Cameron and is clearly evident by the fact we ran over the try line 32 times in total. “Basher” Ben was his usual self with powerful runs and clever footwork, slicing through the defence. Sure we could probably speed it up a little by “spreading wide” with quick ball or remembering our 1,2,3’s when faced with contact with a few more “pop passes” or going to ground and securing by a ruck to create a new attacking platform but hey, we’re being picky here ?32 tries, 32 !!