Saracens Cup

Fullerians U12s first competitive game of the season was at the Saracens Cup on Saturday 5th October. The team were drawn in Pool B against Eton Manor, Watford/Verulamians Baa Baas, Cheshunt and Kingshott School.

First game was against Eton, who appeared to have their elder brothers playing in the team as well! Fullers started slowly, and watched as one of their forwards, who had forgotten to shave for the occasion, rumbled through a number of tackles to put Fullers 5-0 down. Fullers remained on the defence for the remainder of the first half, letting in a further try just as the half finished.

A rousing talk and some soul searching at half time seemed to have fired Fullers up for the second half, and they responded with an early try by Finaly from a close range penalty. But they had not learned the lessons from the first half, and a last ditch tackle by Eamon could not prevent Eton recycling the ball to score again. A further try, assisted by some poor tackling allowed Eton to finish 20-5 winners.

Next up were Watford/Verulamians Baa Baas. The first half was much closer than our first game, but Fullers spent most of it in defence. Our tackling was much improved, except for a couple of high tackles, and the half ended scoreless.

Fullers started the second half on the attack, but squandered a huge overlap following an attacking scrum with a forward pass. Minutes later a break by Jayden was thwarted by a last ditch tackle that forced him into touch. The game finished with a huge sense of disappointment that we had not forced the win, but pleasure at a better, if not complete, performance. 0-0 was the final score.

Third fixture was against Cheshunt. Fullers started brightly with an excellent chase of the kick off, which allowed us to put early pressure on Cheshunt. They fought back, and nearly scored when Fullerians were penalised at a ruck for not rolling away. Fullers managed to reorganise quickly and prevented Cheshunt from scoring from the quickly taken penalty.

The second half started well, Fullerians started to play as we know they can. Good pressure and recycling led to a try for Josh from a quickly taken penalty, and Fullerians were 5-0 up. Excellent tackling by William turned the ball over for Fullerians, and from a line out we were awarded a penalty with only 10 m to go. But indiscipline following some rough play from Cheshunt led to the penalty being reversed. Cheshunt attacked and made god ground, and from a scrum awarded when a maul was held up burst over to level the scores. The game finished with that score, and Fullers were left ruing a missed opportunity.

The final fixture was against Kingshott School. They were pulled up early in the first half for not throwing in straight at an attacking line out. From the resulting scrum Fullers fed the ball along the backline, Jamie, Jo and Josh all making ground before releasing Jayden for a fantastic run up the wing, and his first try for Fullers. Fullers seemed to have been fire up from their previous game, and fantastic mauling and tackiling by William spurred his team mates on. Another quickly taken penalty led to Josh scoring for a 10-0 lead at half time.

Kingshott started the second half brightly, but Jayden had another mazy run when returning an attacking kick from their fly half to put Fullers back on the front foot. From the resulting line out Tommy put in a thumping tackle to force them into touch. We lost the resulting line out, but a charge down from Finlay when they tried to clear their lines, and quick thinking by Jamie led to him touching the ball down. Kingshott mounted a rallying attack, but were repelled by some heroic tackling by William, as well as others. 15-0 final score for Fullers.

We finished up as runners up in our group, and fifth over all on the day. If we had converted one of our draws into a win, which we were more than capable of doing, we would have been playing the semi-finals at Allianz Park. A great afternoon was had by all, watching Saracen vs. Wasps, and the run on the pitch at the end of the game has made the players realise how close they came to appearing in front of that crowd. Watch out next time!