U12 Festival a great success

Today, Farnham U12s hosted a festival at Wilkinson Way for A and B teams from Haslemere, Reeds and Guildford.

A home Festival always involves a massive amount of organisation to ensure the day goes smoothly and thanks to Antonia and Sam, everything went off without a hitch. Thanks goes to Nigel Burbidge and his team of parking helpers who ensured the home and visiting squads all had somewhere safe and legal to park. They even managed to turf out some cheeky footballers using the club for parking on a Sunday! The volunteers to the Catering Corps all sold Tea, Coffee, Bacon Baps and Burgers like demons to swell the club's coffers.

The A's got off to their usual slow start and unfortunately met their toughest opponents, Reeds, in the first match. With only three other teams the organisers agreed to play slightly longer games which was great practice for next year when fixtures will be 40 minutes in total. The As were asleep for the first half which allowed a well drilled Reeds to score two converted tries. In the second half, Farnham defended well to keep a clean scoresheet but by then the damage had been done. Louis Thomas was singled out as our top tackler.

In the second game, the As played Haslemere, against whom we have been successful in the last few encounters. After the defeat against Reeds in the first game, the boys wanted to show what they are made of and they certainly did with an emphatic display. Great runs were made by George Guy, Louis Thomas, Ben Calow with a number of strong Pick and Gos from Max C-H and Chris Ratcliffe. The game finished three nil to Farnham. Things were looking up!

In the last match against Guildford, the boys scented victory and went out with all guns blazing. The whole team played with a level of commitment and aggression which was completely at odds with the earlier performance against Reeds. Suddenly real rugby was being played with passes all going to hand from darting runs made by George Guy, Dylan Milner and Ben Atkins. On the wings, Louis Thomas and Ben Calow were majestic and there were some fantastic individual performances from Finlay Anderson, Ben Cregeen and Charlie Cochrane. Dylan Milner and Finlay Anderson's kicking out of hand (unlike that of Danny Care in an England shirt!) was superb. The forwards had done well all day, with some ferocious drives being made by Max C-H whose aggressive ball carrying earned him first name terms with the Referee! The Farnham scrum held up against all three teams, even against Reeds whose pack was half a head taller than ours on average. Play of the day was adjudged to be Chris Ratcliffe's pick and go try where he beat three Guildford players to the line and didn't look like being stopped by any of them.

What a top morning of Rugby! With superb organisation, Antonia and her army of helpers made it all look easy and the boys acquitted themselves well on the pitch. Roll on the next one!