St Neots U10's Cambridge Festival match report

Today (7th of October) the U10’s squad of 20 players took part in the Cambridge Festival hosted by Royston, with special Kids First ambassadors Ugo Monye and David Flatman in attendance.

After splitting into two playing squads, the Saints & the Cardinals both teams had tough first games against strong Shelford and St Ives teams but did not let defeat get them down, instead they rose to the challenge in the next matches against Royston and Ely with some amazing tackles, offloading, rucking and counter rucking to secure some well-earned wins. Both teams dealt amazingly well with the newly introduced aspects of rucking and with plenty of ripping and sniping runs with incredible support runners to help secure well deserved tries. The Saints and Cardinals defensive efforts were brilliant and with some great tackling and quick counter rucking enabling them to force turn overs and securing the ball, switching from defence to attack. This style of play suited the way St Neots wanted to play and they carried it through to their next games against Royston 2 and Wendens Ambo, where despite the quick turnaround between games both the Cardinals and Saints continued their amazing flow of rugby, playing for each other, with more clever runs drawing in opposition defence with some great offloading helping them exploit the space gained to score yet more tries. Great efforts were made by all players in the ruck area securing the ball for quick hands and quicker legs to run in the tries the supportive work of passing and offloading in the tackles was incredible! A joy to watch!

Our last games were against Wendens Ambo and Huntingdon. Yet again the guys and girls continued to show their amazing skills even with the challenge of running up hill on some very big pitches they battled through and won almost every ruck, again showing great use of ripping and supporting runs to secure well-earned wins.

Today was brilliant, all the players showed all the core values of rugby, Teamwork, respect, discipline, sportsmanship and they all looked like they enjoyed it.

They all should be very proud of themselves and the hard work that they all put in today, the coaching team certainly are.

Saints: Ryan Gaylor, Josh Loughnane, Riley Given, Alfie Knott, Matthew Needham, Johan Todd, Eddie Spencer, Emma Chamberlain, Ashley Baker-Sewell, Lucas Oxborough

Cardinals: Ewan Kendall, Evan Moncreiff, Ethan Martindale, Noah Warmington, Freya Thorpe, Caleb Durrani, Logan Norton, Sam Norton, Charlie Cole, Benjamin Kennedy