Fullerians U12s win John Gray Trophy.

Despite parents hopes that the matches would be rained off, Fullerians U12s took part in the John Grey Cup on Sunday morning. A few administrative oversights by the host club led to a late start, but Fullerians kicked off the pool games against Old Grammarians at 10.30.

Fullers started well, and had the better of Old Grammarians from the outset. While Luke and the rest of the forwards made the hard yards, the back line finally clicked and went through their moves with precision.
Despite the pouring rain Fullers dominated in the scrum and line out, and tackled when required. Tries by Luke were reward ford hard straight running by the forwards, and the mauling practice of the last few weeks paid off as we managed to retain our ball all of the time we took it into contact.

The backs refused to be left out, and their quick decisive passing led to a flowing try by Jayden in the right hand corner.Fullers dominated throughout the match, and ran out 40-5 winners.

While the majority of the team took a well earned breather, William, Fin, Ollie and Josh volunteered to make up the numbers for Welwyn and Old Grammarians to face each other. They played a full and enthusiastic part in the game, which Old Grammarians won 15-10.

Fullers then faced Welwyn to win the tournament. They started brightly, Luke going on a 40m run for the line that was all about power rather than finesse, but this seemed to switch Fullers off. For the rest of the half they managed to play as damp as the conditions, as wet as the shirts on their backs!

A talking too at half time, fired them up briefly for the beginning of the second half, and they managed to score two more tries, including Lewis's first for the club. But where they had been direct and precise in their first game, they now ran sideways and dropped passes all over the pitch, leading to scrum after scrum. Jamie then gallantly stepped aside for their female scrum half, Jo gave a scoring pass to their fly half and Welwyn were back in the game! A great tackle by Josh G broke up their next attack, and Fullers held out for a 15-5 victory, but it should have been a far more convincing win.

Second game down, first trophy in the cabinet, so despite the weather a good day out.

Well done everybody involved, especially those boys who played wholeheartedly for the other teams to make their squads up, including all those mentioned above as well as Josh P and Neel.