Today saw the Golds entered into the Guildfordians B festival, which gave us an opportunity to build on last week’s performance at London Irish. We were pitted against Battersea Ironsides, Farnborough, Haslemere and Salisbury.

The squad for the day was Lewis Brown, Lewis Bradford, Michael, Luke, Jack, Richard, Marcus, Geoffrey, Jay, Rafe, Finlay, Oliver, Dan, David and Tom.

The Matches
First up were Salisbury. From the outset it was obvious that they were a very well organised outfit with some talented (say no more!!) players. By half time due to some poor tackling and too many players getting sucked in at the breakdown we were 3 – 0 down. The 2nd half was a much improved performance, we were much more direct in attack and the tackling was much improved, with the score still 3 – 0 at the whistle.

After a 20 minute break we were back on the pitch against Battersea. Whilst we were far more committed in attack we turned the ball over far too much which allowed the Ironsides to put 3 tries past us in the first half. We have to learn that if we are upright and holding the ball in one hand when we attack the ball will get turned over. Again the 2nd half was much better and we scored 3 tries through direct running, strong running, quick distribution and slick passing. The end result being a well deserved 3-3 draw.

Our third match, again after another 20 minute break, was against Farnborough who were another well organised and gifted!! team. After the 2nd half of the last game the boys stepped it up and there were some good passages of play, with quick ruck ball being won and some good attacking play from the backs. However, we were still 2 – 0 down at half time. The second half saw the boys camped in the Farnborough half, we did go over their line at the end but we thought it was held up, however the score on the official results was 2 – 1, so we’ll take that.

Our final game was against Haslemere, once again after a 20 minute break. This time we went at it from the start, the forwards did their part with some powerful rucking and mauling and with some quick ball the backs were able to show how attacking rugby should be played. At half time we had scored 2 well worked tries and conceded none. The 2nd half started much the same as the first and with some committed tackling we scored another try. Everyone, apart from the walking wounded, played in the game and to cap it off we went over for another great score at the death to win 4-0.

Summary of the day
Played 4, won 1, drew 1, lost 2, scored 8 conceded 8.

There are a great deal of positives that can be taken from today and it’s good to see how you are developing as a team. Hopefully, you will all take away with you that if you are committed in defence and run hard in attack it makes the game so much easier. These two simple things will put you on the front foot in a game and as you saw today when you are on the front foot you can score some fantastic tries.

As coaches we’d like to thank all of you for you efforts today and hope you all enjoyed the experience.

John, Simon, Peter, Mark, Paul and Anthony