under 12 minis

Ipswich greeted their old adversaries Colchester on a Sunday morning that was more suited to ducks than rugby players. One of the coldest days this season, mixed with a driving rain and a strong wind meant the opportunity for free flowing, creative rugby was extremely limited.

Two separate 20 minute games were the agreed format with the opportunity for both teams to play all squad members.

The first game saw both teams evenly matched both in the forwards and backs. The conditions made it difficult for both sets of backs to pass with any degree of certainty and the words “knock on” were all too frequently uttered by the referee. Colchester exerted early pressure but Ipswich defended well with Jonny Renshaw displaying some particularly impressive tackling. Ipswich thought they had snatched the lead when Ewan Thompson dived over from close range, however, the try was ruled out when the ball squirted free and Colchester were awarded…yes you guessed it another knock on!

 A relatively uneventful second half meant the game left honours even at 0 – 0.

The second squad game took on a similar pattern to the first, although Colchester seemed to adapt to the conditions slightly better and secured a well worked try in the first half. With fingers freezing it looked like the visitors would return home victorious. However, the Ipswich team pressed and when the ball worked its way to Nathanial Abery, his jinking run caught the Colchester defence napping and he slipped through to level the game at 1 – 1.

Two evenly balanced games with little to set either team apart and the biggest cheer reserved for tea and hot dogs served up in the club house.   

Ipswich U12’s first friendly of the season was against Lowestoft. Unfortunately for Ipswich the visiting team could only muster 7 players and the eagerly awaited match had to be hastily rearranged into a joint training session and three short 15 minute games.

The training session was carried out with the usual professional enthusiasm demonstrated by the Ipswich coaches every week and was hopefully appreciated by the Lowestoft players and parents. It was, as ever, certainly appreciated by the Ipswich parents.

The first game saw Lowestoft combine with a number of Ipswich players to take on an extremely strong Ipswich side.  Ipswich started well with the forwards completely dominating the scrum. This helped Ed Hudson and Toby Trinder score two opportunistic tries as they poached the ball from the back of the scrum and powered over from two yards! The Ipswich scrumming was extremely impressive throughout and at times threatened to completely overwhelm the opposition.

Tom Emery and Phil Day continue to develop an effective partnership with both displaying excellent positional kicking.  Lowestoft did pressure in the second period of the game and pushed to within 5metres of the Ipswich line, however stout defence and an excellent clearing kick resulted in the ever improving Sam Jepson chasing almost the full length of the pitch to score and leave Ipswich to run out comfortable 3-0 winners.

The Lowestoft players took a breather for the second game which saw the Ipswich players take to the field against each other. Again, a good standard of rugby was showcased, but at times let down by repetitive infringements, more noticeably:

1. handling the ball on the ground,
2. Picking the ball up when offside (a mistake that proved costly at two festivals last year!). 

Specific individual performances included an excellent try saving tackle by Luke (I’m really a back in disguise) Carr on Ollie Knox after a typically mazy run had seen Ollie weave his way through most of the oppositions defence.

Lowestoft took to the field again for the final mixed game which saw the Ipswich backs run in 4 tries through Nathanial Abery, Tom Emery (2) and Adam Wareham. With the session finished it was left to Stu Hudson to wrap up proceedings by thanking everyone for attending and awarding Joe Thomas player of the day.  

All in all, this was a good performance early on in the season, although a tougher test is expected when the team travel to Cambridge next week.