The U12s have carried on their fine form of winning the big games.  Having won the County Cup last year as U11s, the team re-established themselves as the best in the county a couple of weeks ago. Now, with an experimental squad, the U12s have emerged from the Bury Festival as the second-best team in East Anglia.   

 

Having altered the County Cup winning line-up, the new-look team performed competently in the opening match, down 0-10 to a big and well-organised Ipswich team, who deserved their win. There was a welcome return for Henry Brooks-Pollard, reminding us during the tournament how comfortable he is either at Number 8 or at Centre.  Lawrence Rosen showed us why he is such a defensively reliable winger and Alex Mitchell was quickly into his terrier-like role behind the scrum.  Having lost the opener, this put us under pressure, as we had to win our remaining two games to have a chance of progressing.  Despite strong opposition, we did just that.  We beat Sudbury 5-0, thanks to some thundering forward play, which was epitomised by Nihal Chadha's bullocking run for the crucial try.  The pattern was developing of strong play by the forwards and unbreachable defence by the backs. Callum Cleaver and Jack Lee continue to ply their honest trade in the unforgiving world of the front row and Hugo Chambre has added some real steel to our second row.  We then beat Bury St Edmunds 5-0, with a try in the last minute, when Luke Mulley's quick thinking at a tap penalty put Freddy Gurney into space to scorch through for the vital score.

 

The semi-final pitted us against Shelford, who'd been unbeaten in their pool - partly due to our lending them Patrick Orme, when they were short.  It was our performance of the day.  We dominated the first half and deservedly were 10-0 up, with Callum Dicks and Kola Korulchuk each finishing off some barnstorming rucks and mauls, which involved both the backs and the forwards.  In the second half, Shelford came at us like a thunderstorm and were rewarded with an early try.  After that it was about immense defence - think of the greats like Mike Teague, Tim Rodber, Phillippe Sella, Danie Gerber or Brian Lima and you'll have some idea of the quite remarkable tackling and defence of our try-line.  You had to be there to appreciate the sheer physical effort and mental strength.  And we witnessed two more excellent performances, when Archie Miller was required to step into the inside centre role and debutant Oskar Dixon gave Alex Mitchell a much deserved rest at scrum-half.

 

The final brought us back to where we had started, with a return fixture v Ipswich. We had improved considerably from the first game.  It was only a fluke exit of the ball from a maul to their unopposed blind-side wing who easily then scampered half the pitch that gave them a 5-0 lead at half-time.  Seb de Mentheon and Ollie Parker having given their all in the heroic semi-final and an unfortunate injury to Patrick Orme meant that by the end of the game all of the squad had got to play in the final, which was fitting of a team performance where it would be invidious to pick out any one player.  We continued to battle in the second-half, with the indefatigable Luca Williams everywhere, despite a painful hand injury. While we didn't really look like finding the equalising score, we didn't deserve the farcical refereeing decisions that culminated in their second try. But Ipswich were deserved winners, not least because of the sporting spirit in which they play the game.

 

Still, the boys picked up a second set of medals in only the second month of the season and we're in the happy position of almost being able to pick two A teams, such is the depth of talent that is emerging.