This is a short report on the latest League outing for the Under 14s.
From the start of the warm up, it was very apparent that the required focus was missing today, with players not understanding the simplest of instructions and directions.

The game started with a speculative return kick which bounced and was difficult to deal with and the Cranleigh player running onto the ball as it bounced into his hands and through untouched by Vandals for a try within one minute of the kick off.
This set the tone for the game as Vandals were always on the back foot. I cannot remember many scrums, even with our put in and certainly fewer rucks where we went in with the ball, or lineouts that we actually won.
We allowed Cranleigh too much space for their strong centres to operate in and the number of missed tackles was an embarassment.
Still there seemed to be no interest from many of the team.
Tries were leaked through ineffective or inept defending, the backs moving up as though they had never been introduced to each other. The forwards generally spending too much time hanging on the rucks and being ineffective throughout.
The second half was only a slight improvement as changes were made to try to influence the game. Two individual tries from James Gulliver saved the faces of the boys and the game was live as a League match until the end, thanks to them missing the conversion of their SEVENTH try.
Vandals were a very disappointing losing side 10 - 43 and deserved to have had the game finish early. This was an embarassment from start to finish and the harsh lessons need to be learnt and dealt with before we have to face Richmond in 2 weeks.

Players need to be self critical on their own performances in this game. Many were disappointing in their interest in this game. Many were not tackling or contesting at the rucks or scrums and this needs to change soon.
Man of the Match went to Duncan Dickson who was ferocious in his tackling, making 2 or 3 in quick succession and very effective on the blitz defence - well done Duncan.
Other notable performances from James Gulliver, Connor Paull and Rory Burtenshaw.